Processing
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The appearance, size, content and aromatic characteristics of its volatile oil are the factors which decide the quality of the dried spice. Also, they should be free of mustiness and mould. The best prices are obtained for whole dried cloves of a good bold size with a bright, uniform, reddish-brown colour. The features mentioned above are, in turn, influenced to a great extent by the care taken in the harvesting, drying, cleaning and sorting operations, and the storage conditions.
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Prior to drying, the buds are removed from the stems and then piled in separate heaps for later individual drying, during which, over-ripe cloves and gleanings of fallen flowers are sorted out. Drying is undertaken as soon as possible, after the buds have separated from the clusters. If the buds are left too long in heaps they will ferment and the dried spice will have a whitish, shrivelled appearance (Khoker cloves). In sunny weather, drying may take four to five days to produce a brightly-coloured dried spice of attractive appearance.
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The correct stage of drying is reached when the base of the bud is dark brown, and the rest of the bud lighter brown in colour. On drying, the cloves retain about two-thirds of their original fresh green weight. Then another sorting is done to separate 'mother-of-cloves' and ',choker cloves'. A final thorough cleaning, sorting and grading is carried out by the exporting firms prior to packing.
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The stems remaining after the separation of the buds from the freshly-harvested clusters are dried similarly and are used to distil clove oil by the steam distillation method.
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The duration of distillation ranges from 8-25 hours depending upon the size of the still, the nature and volume of steam and the condition of the cloves. The leaves and small twigs yield clove-leaf oil. Clove-stem oil is obtained from the stems attached to the buds and flowers, and bud oil from the buds. The essential oil yield is 17- 19% from clove buds, 6% from the clove stems and 2-3% from the leaves.
Grading
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Whole cloves are graded as special (Hand-picked), Grade-2, Grade-3, Ground (powdered) cloves, while the defective cloves are named as Khoker cloves, Headless cloves, Mother cloves, Extraneous matter, etc.
Value-added products
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Clove oil, ground clove, oleoresins, clove-stem oil, clove-leaf oil, oil of mother of cloves and clove-root oil are some of the value-added products of clove.
Adulterants
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Cloves are sometimes adulterated with headless cloves and clove stems. They may also be adulterated with Khoker cloves or mother cloves and other extraneous matter like dust, dirt, stones, clay particles and pieces of wood. The adulterants of clove-bud oil are stem oil, and clove-leaf oil. Another form of adulteration is the addition of clove terpenes, synthetic terpineol, dibenzyl or dibenzylether and acetins in clove-bud oil
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