CLOVES FLOWER BUD POWDER[SYZYGIUM AROMATICUM]
Listing description
Cloves are the aromatic flower buds of a tree
in the family Myrtaceae, Syzygium
aromaticum. They are native to the Maluku Islands in Indonesia, and are commonly used as a spice. Cloves
are commercially harvested primarily in Bangladesh, Indonesia, India, Madagascar, Zanzibar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Tanzania. Cloves are available throughout the year.
Detailed
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Botanical features
The clove tree is an evergreen that grows up to 8–12 m tall, with
large leaves and sanguine flowers grouped in terminal
clusters. The flower buds initially have a pale hue, gradually turn green, then
transition to a bright red when ready for harvest. Cloves are harvested at
1.5–2.0 cm long, and consist of a long calyx that terminates in four spreading sepals, and
four unopened petals that form a small central ball.
Uses
Cloves are used in the cuisine of Asian, African, and
the Near and Middle East countries,
lending flavor to meats, curries, and marinades, as
well as fruit such as apples, pears or rhubarb. Cloves may be used to give
aromatic and flavor qualities to hot beverages, often combined with other
ingredients such as lemon and sugar. They are a common element in spice blends
such as pumpkin
pie spice and speculoos spices.
In Mexican
cuisine, cloves are best known as clavos
de olor, and often accompany cumin and cinnamon.[2] They are also used in Peruvian cuisine, in
a wide variety of dishes as carapulcra and arroz con leche.
A major component of clove taste is imparted by the chemical eugenol,[3] and
the quantity of the spice required is typically small. It pairs well with
cinnamon, allspice, vanilla, red
wine and basil, as
well as onion, citrus
peel, star
anise, or peppercorns.
Non-culinary uses
The spice is used in a type of cigarette called kretek in
Indonesia.[1] Clove cigarettes have been smoked
throughout Europe, Asia and the United States. Starting in 2009, clove
cigarettes must be classified as cigars in the US.[4]
Cloves can be used to make a fragrance pomander when combined with an orange. When given as
a gift in Victorian England, such a pomander indicated warmth of feeling.
Traditional medicinal uses[edit]
Cloves are used in Indian Ayurvedic medicine, Chinese
medicine, and western herbalism and dentistry where the essential
oil is used
as an anodyne (painkiller) for dental emergencies. Cloves
are used as a carminative, to
increase hydrochloric acid in the stomach and to improve peristalsis.
Cloves are also said to be a natural anthelmintic.[6] The essential oil is used in aromatherapy
when stimulation and warming are needed, especially for digestive problems.
Topical application over the stomach or abdomen are said to warm the digestive
tract. Applied to a cavity in a decayed tooth, it also relieves toothache.[7]
In Chinese medicine, cloves or ding
xiang are considered acrid,
warm, and aromatic, entering the kidney, spleen and stomach meridians, and are notable in
their ability to warm the middle, direct stomach qi downward, to treat hiccup and to fortify the kidney yang.[8] Because the herb is so warming, it is
contraindicated in any persons with fire symptoms and according to classical
sources should not be used for anything except cold from yang deficiency. As such, it is used in
formulas for impotence or clear vaginal discharge from yang deficiency, for morning sickness
together with ginseng and patchouli, or
for vomiting and diarrhea due to spleen and stomach coldness.[8]
Potential medicinal uses
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has reclassified
eugenol (one of the chemicals contained in clove oil), downgrading its
effectiveness rating. The FDA now believes not enough evidence indicates clove
oil or eugenol is effective for toothache pain or a variety of other types of
pain.[9]
Studies to determine its effectiveness for fever reduction, as a mosquito repellent, and to prevent premature ejaculation have been inconclusive.[9] It remains unproven whether clove may
reduce blood sugar levels.[10]
In addition, clove oil is used in preparation of some
toothpastes and Clovacaine solution, which is a local anesthetic used in oral
ulceration and inflammation. Eugenol (or clove oil generally) is mixed with
zinc oxide to form a temporary tooth cavity filling.[11]
Clove oil can be used to anesthetize fish, and prolonged
exposure to higher doses (the recommended dose is 400 mg/l) is considered
a humane means of euthanasia.[12]
Adulteration
Clove stalks are
slender stems of the inflorescence axis that show opposite decussate branching. Externally, they are brownish,
rough, and irregularly wrinkled longitudinally with short fracture and dry,
woody texture.
Mother cloves (anthophylli) are the ripe fruits of cloves that are
ovoid, brown berries, unilocular and one-seeded. This can be detected by the
presence of much starch in the seeds.
Exhausted cloves have
most or all the oil removed by distillation. They yield no oil and are darker
in color.[13]
History
Archeologists have found cloves in a ceramic vessel in Syria, with
evidence that dates the find to within a few years of 1721 BC.[14] In the third century BC, a Chinese leader
in the Han
Dynasty required
those who addressed him to chew cloves to freshen their breath.[15] Cloves were traded by Muslim sailors and merchants during the Middle
Ages in the
profitable Indian
Ocean trade,
the clove trade is also mentioned by Ibn Battuta and
even famous Arabian
Nights characters
such as Sinbad
the Sailor are
known to have bought and sold cloves from India.[16]
Until modern times, cloves grew only on a few islands in the Moluccas (historically called the Spice
Islands), including Bacan, Makian, Moti, Ternate, and Tidore.[14] In fact, the clove tree that experts
believe is the oldest in the world, named Afo,
is on Ternate. The tree is between 350 and 400 years old.[17] Tourists are told that seedlings from this
very tree were stolen by a Frenchman named Poivre in
1770, transferred to France, and then later to Zanzibar, which
was once the world's largest producer of cloves.[17]
Until cloves were grown outside of the Maluku Islands, they were
traded like oil, with an enforced limit on exportation.[17] As the Dutch East India Company consolidated its control of the spice
trade in the
17th century, they sought to gain a monopoly in cloves as they had in nutmeg.
However, "unlike nutmeg and mace, which
were limited to the minute Bandas, clove trees grew all over the
Moluccas, and the trade in cloves was way beyond the limited policing powers of
the corporation."[18]
Chemical compounds
Eugenol comprises
72–90% of the essential
oil extracted
from cloves and is the compound most responsible for clove aroma.[3] Other important essential oil constituents
of clove oil include acetyl eugenol, beta-caryophyllene and vanillin, crategolic acid, tannins such as bicornin, gallotannic acid, methyl
salicylate (painkiller),
the flavonoids eugenin, kaempferol, rhamnetin, and eugenitin, triterpenoids such as oleanolic acid, stigmasterol, and campesterol and
several sesquiterpenes.
Eugenol is toxic in relatively small quantities; for example, a
dose of 5–10 ml has been reported as a near fatal dose for a two-year-old
child.
PRICE
$61.84/KG
For more information:
mobile: +2348039721941
contact person: emeaba uche
website: www.franchiseminerals.com
e-mail: emeabau@yahoo.com
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