Clove

A clove is a flower that never opened. The small dark nail we know is the unopened bud of a tropical tree, picked and dried before it can bloom, and everything it would have given to a flower it gives instead to scent.

What clove is

Clove bud oil is steam distilled from the dried, unopened flower buds of Syzygium aromaticum, an evergreen of the myrtle family. The oil is dominated by eugenol, the warm, sweet, faintly medicinal molecule that also gives carnation its spice, together with eugenyl acetate, which softens it, and caryophyllene, which gives a dry woody body. Bud oil is finer than the oils distilled from clove leaves or stems, sweeter and more floral, and it is the only clove I use.

Where our clove comes from

Ours comes from Indonesia, the original home of the clove tree. For centuries the tree grew only on a handful of tiny islands in the Moluccas, and the trade in its buds shaped the map of the world. Today clove is grown across the Indonesian archipelago, and Indonesia remains by far the largest producer. The hot, humid, volcanic islands give buds with a high oil content and a sweet, rounded eugenol that is less harsh than clove from cooler origins. It is clove as the islands knew it, warm and almost fruity.

How clove smells

Warm clove, sweet, fruity and woody. There is the familiar spicy heat, but in the bud oil it is wrapped in a soft sweetness with a faint suggestion of carnation and ripe fruit, and a dry woody trail.

Clove in our chapter

• VChérie OudThe Trunk · in the heart

  In Chérie Oud it sits in the heart beside tonka and vanilla, the spice that keeps the sweetness honest and gives the trunk of the tree its warmth.

A note from the atelier

Clove beside vanilla is the smell of something slowly baked, and I wanted Chérie Oud to carry that memory without ever becoming a dessert. The bud oil, used with restraint, does exactly that.

Questions about clove