Cloves are the dried flower buds of a 40 foot tall tree native to Indonesia, picked by hand when just turning pink. For countless generations the people of the Molucca Islands, as well as those in neighboring India, cooked with cloves. The Chinese began buying cloves from India about 100 BC. Eventually Arab trading ships carried cloves to Mediterranean ports. Cloves became among the world's costliest spices.

Asian island rulers, who dominated spice trading in ancient times, were soon under attack by Europeans smelling profit. Ferdinand Magellan made his famous voyage around the world while seeking an alternative route to the Moluccas. Early in the 1500's Portugal controlled the sale of spices in Europe but the Dutch asserted themselves by the close of the century, occupying Portuguese holdings in the Spice Islands, murdering competitive English and Moluccan clove growers, and even chopping down countless clove trees to preserve just enough for their own trade.

Clove trees eventually were carried to the east African islands of Zanzibar and Pemba. Today Tanzania is one of the world's biggest clove exporters, along with Madagascar.

The oil of the clove is used in pharmaceuticals, as well as fine perfumes, and flavored cigarettes.