Using cloves in the kitchen: a year-round spice

Cloves are the dried flower buds of the evergreen tree Syzygium aromaticum from the myrtle family (Myrtaceae), and they are good for far more than red cabbage and mulled wine. Their aroma comes 68 to 82 per cent from the active compound eugenol (Alfikri et al., 2020), which makes them the most concentrated spice on the shelf: two to four whole buds are enough for a pot serving four, in a pickling liquor it is four to six buds per litre, in chai three buds per litre, and with ground cloves a scant knife tip. That is exactly why cloves work all year round in biryani, tagine, chai, stocks, marinades and fruit chutneys, and not only in Christmas cooking. If you buy whole buds, dose them sparingly, add them to the pot early, take them out again before serving and store the rest in a dark, airtight place, a single jar covers the entire range, from summer chutney to red cabbage.

We at MrCOLOMBO import our spices directly from Sri Lanka, and we will be honest here: the clove is not a Sri Lankan spice in the narrower sense. With around 5,722 tonnes, Sri Lanka ranks only 5th among producing countries, while Indonesia, with 133,955 tonnes, accounts for around 73 per cent of world production (FAOSTAT, 2022). What we bring back from our work with smallholder farmers in the Central Province is nevertheless transferable: how to recognise harvest timing, drying and storage from the goods themselves applies to the clove just as much as to Ceylon cinnamon or highland pepper. On our buying trips we check every batch against the same three criteria: colour, oil pressure and breaking behaviour. A cleanly dried clove is reddish brown to dark brown, neither faded grey nor burnt black, it feels slightly oily when rubbed between the fingers and snaps under pressure instead of crumbling dry. These are exactly the hands-on checks we pass on in this article, so that you can apply them yourself when buying cloves in the shop.

Cloves originally come from five small volcanic islands of the Moluccas: Ternate, Tidore, Makian, Moti and Bacan (AramcoWorld, 2021). For centuries the tree grew nowhere else, and cultivation remained strictly monopolised throughout the colonial era; only when seedlings were smuggled out of the Moluccas did the crop spread to Mauritius and from there to Zanzibar and Madagascar (AramcoWorld, 2021). Today the focus is clearly on Indonesia with 133,955 tonnes, followed by Madagascar with 24,308 tonnes and Tanzania with 8,562 tonnes (FAOSTAT, 2022). Zanzibar, for around 150 years the emblem of the clove trade, reached about 3,000 tonnes in 2020 (Statista Research Department, 2021); politically the island belongs to Tanzania and is included in its total. The trade logic behind this is interesting: Indonesia consumes most of its own harvest itself, above all in the production of kretek cigarettes. Madagascar therefore plays a considerably larger role on the world market than its production share of around 13 per cent would suggest.

Sri Lanka does produce cloves, around 5,722 tonnes, but plays no major role internationally. In Ceylonese cooking itself, however, the bud is firmly established: it belongs to the classic base of a roasted Ceylon curry powder, together with coriander, cumin, fennel, cinnamon and cardamom. If you want to get to know this aromatic profile, you will find it again in our Sri Lanka curry recipe. Measured against a world production of around 183,000 tonnes, the Sri Lankan share comes to about 3 per cent (FAOSTAT, 2022). The global clove market was estimated at 5.7 billion US dollars in 2025 and is expected to grow to 7.76 billion US dollars by 2031, at 5.28 per cent annual growth over the period 2026 to 2031 (Mordor Intelligence, 2026). In practical terms for shopping, this means: anyone buying cloves is, as a rule, buying Indonesian or Malagasy goods, regardless of which trader's name is on the jar. All the more important are the checks on the product itself, because the declaration of origin alone reveals little about the quality of the batch.

The scent of the clove is almost entirely down to a single compound: eugenol. Chemically it is a phenylpropanoid, in other words related to the aroma compounds of cinnamon and allspice, and it makes up by far the largest share of the essential oil. Exactly how large depends on harvest stage, tree age and origin. An Indonesian series of measurements found 68.05 to 82.38 per cent, the highest value in buds at the flowering stage of mature trees (Alfikri et al., 2020). A Brazilian sample, by contrast, came to only 52.53 per cent (Teles et al., 2021). Traditionally the still-closed bud is harvested as soon as it turns from green to pink; it then dries for several days in the sun until it takes on the typical reddish-brown colour and the hard, woody consistency. This degree of drying is precisely the first quality characteristic we check in a batch. Eugenol is listed in the EU as a flavouring substance and may only be used after an EFSA safety assessment, governed by the Flavourings Regulation (EC) No 1334/2008 in conjunction with Implementing Regulation (EU) No 872/2012.

From a cooking point of view, the high eugenol content of the clove is not a chemistry footnote but a dosing rule. Eugenol is an aroma compound with strong binding power: it dominates any blend in which there is too much of it and pushes aside finer notes such as cardamom or fennel. Nutritionally the clove is of minor importance, as a teaspoon of ground cloves (2 grams) provides only 6 calories and 1 gram of carbohydrates (Healthline, 2024). More relevant is the flavour benefit: the German Nutrition Society expressly recommends herbs and spices as a seasoning alternative to help keep within the salt limit of 6 grams per day (DGE). A clove in the braising stock does not replace any quantity of salt, but it shifts the perception noticeably towards "savoury".

The German clove reflex is red cabbage, sauerbraten, gingerbread, mulled wine. Internationally it looks different, and the production figures show it: Indonesia processes most of its annual harvest of 133,955 tonnes within its own country (FAOSTAT, 2022), where the clove has nothing to do with Christmas. In northern India the whole bud goes into the hot fat at the start of a biryani, together with cardamom pods, cinnamon stick, star anise and bay leaf: 3 to 4 buds release their oil in under a minute and perfume a whole pot of rice. In a Moroccan tagine, 2 buds sit in the spice base with cinnamon, coriander and cumin and, over 60 to 90 minutes of braising, contribute the dark, almost resinous depth to lamb or chickpeas. In Sri Lanka the clove goes into roasted curry blends, in East Africa into rice dishes and meat broths. All these uses are independent of the season, because they work with braising, roasting or steeping, not with winter mood.

The clove also has its place in the kitchen in summer. It is the backbone of every pickling liquor for cucumbers, pumpkin or red onions, because the eugenol, with its 68 to 82 per cent share of the essential oil (Alfikri et al., 2020), passes immediately into the liquid in vinegar and sugar: 4 to 6 buds per litre of liquor are enough. It works in a fruit chutney of apple or pear with 2 buds per kilo of fruit, which goes with grilled meat and cheese. And it is in chai drunk cold: if you steep 3 buds per litre with cardamom and ginger for 8 minutes, let it cool and serve it over ice, you get a drink without any winter association at all. Our iced chai latte recipe shows how that builds up. In all three cases, what Öko-Test describes for cloves applies: the whole buds are cooked along and removed again before serving (Öko-Test, 2025). A single clove in the tomato sauce, in the lentil dal or in the beef stock remains invisible and still makes the result rounder.

The most frequent question in cooking communities is: how many cloves per pot? As a rule of thumb: 2 to 4 whole buds for four servings, 4 to 6 buds per litre of pickling liquor, 3 buds per litre for hot drinks such as chai, a scant knife tip for ground cloves. The reason for these small quantities lies in the high eugenol content of 68 to 82 per cent (Alfikri et al., 2020): even a single bud carries enough aroma to shape half a litre of sauce. Use too many and you get a bitter, almost numbing aftertaste that can no longer be cooked away. You can always add more seasoning, but never take it out.

When cooking with whole cloves, two hands-on steps make the difference. First: fish the buds out before serving. In cooking communities this is one of the recurring questions, and the advice is justified, because a whole clove in the mouth is unpleasant and becomes a choking hazard for small children. If you do not want to go searching, put the 2 to 4 buds into half an onion or a tea strainer and take them out again in one go; Öko-Test, too, describes cooking whole cloves along and removing them again as the usual way (Öko-Test, 2025). Second: add cloves early, not at the end. Their aroma needs heat and time, unlike fresh herbs, for instance. In braises they go in with the searing and simmer along for 60 to 90 minutes, in drinks at the start of the 8-minute steeping time. Ground cloves stirred in only shortly before serving taste raw and dusty rather than integrated. How spices behave in different cooking methods is something we have described in more detail in our article on spices from Sri Lanka.

Whole cloves beat ground ones almost every time. The essential oil sits protected inside the closed bud head and only escapes when crushed or cooked. Ground cloves, on the other hand, lose noticeable intensity after just a few months, because the surface area is many times larger and the oxygen reaches the entire powder. Öko-Test advises choosing products with 100 per cent pure spice and no additives, and describes whole cloves that are cooked along and removed again before serving as the usual way (Öko-Test, 2025). Ground is only worthwhile where the texture gets in the way: in doughs, dry blends and rubs. If you need both, buy whole buds and freshly crush the small quantity for a dough shortly before baking. The difference in aroma between freshly crushed and months-old powder is far greater than most people expect, and it costs nothing but two minutes of work.

For checking quality there is an old traders' test that we use ourselves on buying trips: the water flotation test. A fresh, oil-rich clove sinks to the bottom of a glass of water or stands upright with its head pointing up. Old, dried-out buds lie flat on the surface. Second test: squeeze a bud between your fingernails. If oil comes out and a scent remains on your fingers, the goods are in order. For storage the same applies as for all spices containing essential oils: dark, dry, airtight and never above the cooker. That way whole spices keep their aroma for months, sometimes even years (Öko-Test, 2025). We have written this up in detail in our article on storing spices properly.

Cloves rarely work alone. In almost all cuisines that use them year-round, they stand next to cinnamon: in biryani, in tagine, in chai, in curry powder. It is worth taking a look at the type of cinnamon, because there are worlds between true Ceylon cinnamon and the widespread cassia, both in flavour and in coumarin content. For coumarin, the BfR and EFSA have derived a tolerable daily intake of 0.1 milligrams per kilogram of body weight, so 6 milligrams per day at 60 kilograms (BfR, 2012); cassia is well above Ceylon cinnamon in content. We have broken down the difference in our comparison Ceylon cinnamon versus cassia cinnamon. Our cinnamon sticks come from the central region of Sri Lanka, where a tropical monsoon climate with around 2,000 millimetres of annual rainfall and permeable, sandy-loamy soils at the foot of the central highlands provide the growing conditions. We work there with farms whose peelers we know personally, and it is exactly this direct relationship that is the yardstick we also apply to bought-in goods such as cloves: known origin, traceable processing, checked batch.

The joint FAO and WHO expert committee has set an acceptable daily intake for eugenol of 0 to 2.5 milligrams per kilogram of body weight (JECFA, 1982). For a person weighing 70 kilograms that is 175 milligrams of eugenol per day, a figure that a normal household seasoning quantity per serving falls well below. The acceptable daily intake describes the amount that can be consumed daily over a lifetime without adverse health effects being expected. If you set the usual kitchen practice against this, there is plenty of margin: 2 to 4 buds are spread across four servings, so less than one whole bud ends up on the plate, and its eugenol does not even pass fully into the food, because the buds are removed again before serving. It is a different matter with concentrated preparations, and that is exactly where the real limit lies.

To put a current trend into perspective: under the keyword "Clove Water", clove water recipes have been circulating on TikTok and Instagram since 2026, promoted with effects on belly fat, skin and digestion. There is no scientific basis for these specific promises, as Banner Health and Noom (2025), among others, note in their assessments. What has actually been studied concerns other questions: eugenol is being tested in laboratory studies for antimicrobial and antioxidant properties, for example with an IC50 value of 11.7 micrograms per millilitre in the DPPH radical scavenging test (Pérez-Rosés et al., cited in Ulanowska & Olas, 2021), and a systematic review of 30 evaluated papers summarises the data on bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites (Verma et al., 2024). These are findings from the laboratory, not statements about effects when consumed as a spice. Clove water, moreover, is nothing more than an infusion of a few buds in hot water and thus delivers only a fraction of the eugenol quantities used in such experimental set-ups.

You can tell a good spice not by the label, but by what happens when you crush it between your fingers.

MrCOLOMBO experience report

Yes, the clove is worthwhile as a year-round spice if you take it out of the Christmas corner and treat it like a basic spice. With 68 to 82 per cent eugenol in the essential oil (Alfikri et al., 2020) it is the most concentrated spice in the typical store cupboard, and the entire handling follows precisely from that: buy whole buds, dose sparingly, add early, remove before serving, store dark and airtight. If you take these five points to heart, you use the same jar for biryani in July, tagine in September, pickling liquor in October and red cabbage in December, and get by with 2 to 4 buds per pot. A jar of whole cloves thus replaces several ready-made blends, because the bud belongs in almost every one of them anyway. How strongly origin and processing determine the flavour of a spice shows in the clove just as in everything we import from Sri Lanka, as you can read in our article on the advantages of organic spices.