Cloves from Zanzibar: grades and export documentation

Hand-picked selected against fair average quality, what volatile oil and headless percentages tell a buyer, and the paperwork a regulated origin adds to a spice consignment.

Cloves from Unguja and Pemba are among Tanzania's best-known spice exports, and they are also among the few where a buyer's first decision is a grade name rather than a number. Two grades carry most of the trade — hand-picked selected, usually written HPS, and fair average quality, written FAQ — with clove stems traded separately from both.

What separates the two is selection. HPS is picked over by hand, and the indicative tolerances reflect that: headless cloves at 3% maximum and purity at 98% minimum for that grade. FAQ is the working grade of the trade, sound and merchantable but not hand-selected, and it is the sensible buy where the cloves are going to be ground, distilled or blended rather than displayed. Buying HPS for a grinding line is paying for an appearance that disappears in the mill.

Volatile oil is the figure buyers who distil ask for first. Ours is indicative at 14 to 17% and it is lot dependent, which is not a hedge but a fact about an agricultural product: buds from different pickings and different drying conditions do not test identically. If your process has a floor, state it in the enquiry so the lot can be selected against it rather than tested against it after arrival.

The remaining numbers are quickly said. Total ash at 7% maximum, stems and extraneous matter at 1% maximum, foreign matter at 1% maximum, and moisture between 12 and 14%. Moisture is the one to watch on a spice: too high and the consignment is a mould risk in a container that will spend weeks at sea, too low and the buds break up into dust that nobody has bought. As everywhere on this site, these are indicative trade ranges and the contract specification is the one that binds.

Clove stems are a legitimate product in their own right and we trade them separately. They are not a filler, and a specification that caps stems and extraneous matter at 1% is what keeps that distinction honest in a bag. A buyer who wants stems should order stems; a buyer who wants buds should hold the supplier to the tolerance.

Cloves are a high-value line, so the volumes are smaller than the grain trade is used to: an indicative 1 MT trial lot, with commercial orders from 5 MT upwards. That makes a trial shipment a realistic first step rather than a favour, and it is the usual way a new clove relationship starts.

Documentation is where clove buyers should expect one extra layer. Clove trading in Zanzibar is regulated, and consignments follow the applicable statutory marketing and export procedures — that is a fact about the origin, and it is not something a supplier can arrange around. On top of it sits the ordinary export file: commercial invoice and packing list, certificate of origin, a phytosanitary certificate from the competent national authority, a fumigation certificate where required, and any quality, weight or laboratory certificate your market or your contract calls for. Tell us at enquiry stage what your market requires, because the documentation is planned with the shipment, not after it.

The main picking season runs broadly from July to December. Send us the grade, the volatile oil floor if you have one, the quantity and the destination, and we will confirm availability before quoting.