Indonesian Clove Cigarettes and Tobacco Articles

Cloves are the aromatic dried flower buds of a tree (Syzygium aromaticum, sometimes included in the genus Eugenia) in the family Myrtaceae. It is native to Indonesia and used as a spice in virtually all the world's cuisine. The name derives from French clou, a nail, as the buds vaguely resemble small irregular nails in shape. Cloves are harvested primarily in Indonesia and Madagascar; it is also grown in Zanzibar, India, Sri Lanka, and the "Spice Islands" (Moluccas, Indonesia known as the Bandas Islands). more

Kreteks are Indonesian cigarettes made with a complex blend of tobacco, cloves and a flavoring 'sauce'. They are often called clove cigarettes. It is believed that the name kretek, which is the Indonesian word for the cigarettes, comes from the crackling sound the cloves make when they are burned. Kreteks were originally created by Haji Jamahri, a resident of Kudus, Java, Indonesia, in the early 1880's for medicinal purposes as a way to deliver the eugenol in the cloves to the lungs, as it was thought to help asthma. . more

Tobacco (Nicotiana spp., L.) refers to a genus of broad-leafed plants of the nightshade family indigenous to North and South America or to the dried and cured leaves. Such leaves are often smoked (see tobacco smoking) in the form of a cigar or cigarette, or in a smoking pipe, or in a water pipe or a hookah. Tobacco is also chewed, "dipped" (placed between the cheek and gum), and consumed as finely powdered snuff tobacco, which is sniffed into the nose. The Spanish word "tabaco" is thought to have its origin in Arawakan language, particularly, in the Taino language of the Caribbean, said to refer to a roll of these leaves (according to Bartolome de Las Casas, 1552) or to a kind of pipe for smoking it (according to Oviedo), but Sp. tabaco (also It. tabacco) was comonly used to define medicinal herbs from 1410, originating from the Arabic "tabbaq", reportedly since the 9th c., as the name of various herbs. The word might then be European, and later applied to this plant from the Americas . "tabago" a Y-shaped pipe used to sniff tobacco smoke through the nostrils. more

The word entered English in 1598 via Italian caffè, via Turkish kahveh, from Arabic qahwa. Its ultimate origin is uncertain, there being several legendary accounts of the origin of the drink. One possible explanation is the Kaffa region in Ethiopia, where the plant originated (its native name there being bunna). Coffee beans were first imported from Ethiopia to Yemen. One legendary account (though certainly a myth) is that of the Yemenite Sufi mystic named Shaikh ash-Shadhili. When traveling in Ethiopia he observed goats of unusual vitality and, upon trying the berries that the goats had been eating, experienced the same effect. A similar myth ascribes the discovery to an Ethiopian goatherd named Kaldi. Qahwa originally referred to a type of wine, and need not be the name of the Kaffa region. more