Cloves

Because of the high annual cigarette production in Indonesia, it is widely assumed the finest quality cloves (the dried flower buds of a tropical evergreen tree) that are an important ingredient in the cigarettes, are found all across the country. Such assumptions may be right and wrong; every cigarette-company owns clove plantations, for example in East Java, but many still turn to Ternate and Tidore, in the Maluku islands for the premier quality ingredient.

Other than being ground inside cigarette factories, cloves find their way into our kitchens to impart a very particular spicy-sweet taste to meat or fish dishes, and pickles. Only a few cloves need be used in a dish, for the ingredient is never meant to overpower the food with its distinctive aroma.