Whole cloves

The clove spice, which everyone is used to seeing in the dried form of seasoning, is collected from the Clove tree. The spice is the unblown flowers of this tree, they are round in shape and no more than a centimeter long.

The buds are collected just a couple of days before the flowers appear.

To determine the quality of the spice, just throw it in water. A quality carnation will sink or float vertically (the cap looks up). If the flower floats horizontally, then it is a poor quality spice with a low oil content. Before you buy a spice, you can press one bud to the leaf, a quality product will leave a small oil mark on it.

In the food industry, cloves are used for preserving vegetables and fruits, for salting and pickling mushrooms.

It is also used in mixtures of spices, for the production of confectionery. It is added to sausages, liver pates.

Cloves are part of the spices for making hot wine drinks.