The sun dried flower bud of the clove tree has been used as a spice since ancient times first introduced to europe in the 3rd 4th century cloves were for a long time in as much demand demand as pepper even before this cloves were long used in china and highly prized for the medicinal and culinary qualities used in combination with cinnamon to flavour puddings cakes and bisuits cloves are also used to flavour the syrup when poaching oranges clove oil is used medicinally particularly as a