Laung (Cloves): Traditional Uses, Real Amounts and Honest Cautions
Cloves are not seeds and not bark. They are dried flower buds, picked before they open, and that single fact explains almost everything about how they behave in a pot and why they need handling with a light hand.
At a glance
- Traditionally used for: warming the stomach after heavy food, freshening the mouth, and scenting rice, tea and slow meat dishes across South Asia and the Middle East.
- Typical amount: 2 to 4 whole cloves in a family pot, or 3 cloves simmered in 250 ml water for a small evening cup.
- Best form: whole buds, bought in small quantities, ground only in the minute you need them.
- Go easy if: you take blood thinners, have surgery booked, live with reflux or ulcers, are pregnant or breastfeeding, or are thinking of clove oil for a child.
What a clove actually is, and where the good ones come from
Look closely at a whole clove and you can read its anatomy. The long tapered body is the flower stem and the unopened calyx. The little ball at the top, the part that snaps off and gets lost in the rice, is the bud itself. If that ball has fallen off every clove in the packet, you are looking at old stock.
The tree is native to a handful of islands in eastern Indonesia, and Indonesia still grows an enormous share of the world crop, though much of it goes into scented cigarettes rather than cooking pots. For kitchen cloves the names that matter are Zanzibar and Pemba off the Tanzanian coast, and Madagascar. Madagascar cloves tend to be plump and very oily, Zanzibar cloves slimmer and sharper in the nose. Buy whichever your local shop turns over quickly.
How to tell fresh from dead
Two old tests, both reliable, both free. The float test first. Drop a few cloves into a glass of room temperature water. A good clove is heavy with its own oil, so it sinks, or floats upright with the bud end poking up like a tiny buoy. One that has lost its oil lies flat on the surface, drifting sideways. If most of the packet lies flat, that packet is scenting your cupboard and nothing else.
Then the fingernail test. Press a thumbnail into the stem of one clove. A fresh bud gives slightly, leaves a dent, and puts a faint oily gloss and a strong smell on your nail. A stale one is dry, brittle and crumbles to dust.
A good clove leaves its smell on your thumbnail. A dead one leaves nothing but dust.
Buying and storing
Whole cloves in an airtight glass jar, kept in a dark cupboard away from the cooker, hold their character for around a year, and are still usable at two though noticeably quieter. Ground clove is a different story. Grinding ruptures every oil cell at once and the aroma starts leaving immediately, so a jar of powder is usually flat within two to three months. Buy 50 grams of whole cloves rather than 200, and grind six or eight in a mortar when a recipe asks for a pinch. Same trick that makes the difference with whole green cardamom pods.
In Unani thinking, laung is classed as hot and dry, which is why it turns up in winter blends and after heavy, oily meals rather than on a hot June afternoon. Ayurvedic tradition places it similarly, as a warming spice for a sluggish appetite, usually paired with honey or other warming companions rather than given alone. In ordinary kitchens from Lahore to Beirut none of that theory gets spoken aloud. Somebody just drops four cloves into the pulao water because that is how their mother did it. All of this is tradition and long habit, not proven fact.
What cloves do in a pot
Put whole cloves into hot ghee or oil and you get maybe fifteen seconds of one of the best smells in cooking, sweet and medicinal and slightly hot at the back of the nose, like a barber’s shop and a dessert at once. That is the moment to add your onions. Leave them in the fat much past half a minute and the smell turns bitter and tarry.
Clove is the loudest spice on most shelves. Two in a pot of biryani sit politely behind the cinnamon and the bay. Six and the whole dish tastes of clove and nothing else, with no rescuing it. For warmth without domination, lean on cinnamon or dalchini for the body and let one or two cloves do the sharp top note.
Two precise preparations
Simple clove decoction (one cup)
- Take 3 whole cloves (roughly 0.3 grams). Crack each one once under the flat of a knife so the stem splits. Do not powder them.
- Put them in a small pan with 250 ml of cold water.
- Bring to a gentle boil over medium heat, which takes about 3 minutes on a domestic hob.
- Turn the heat to low and simmer, uncovered, for 5 minutes. The water will go pale straw coloured and the kitchen will smell of clove.
- Take it off the heat, cover, and let it stand for 3 more minutes.
- Strain into a cup. Add half a teaspoon of honey if you want it, once the liquid has cooled below scalding.
People treat this as an occasional after dinner cup, once a day at most and usually only for a few days in a row in cold weather. A warm drink, not a course of anything.
Clove and cinnamon infusion (two cups)
- Measure 500 ml of water into a pan.
- Add 4 whole cloves and one 5 cm piece of cinnamon bark, broken in two.
- Bring to a boil, then reduce and simmer for 7 minutes.
- Switch off the heat. Add 2 thin slices of fresh ginger if you like it sharper, cover, and steep for 5 minutes.
- Strain into two cups. Drink warm, not boiling.
Keep it to one cup per person in an evening. A stronger brew is not a better one, and clove infusions that are pushed hard are the ones that cause heartburn.
The mouth and toothache tradition, handled carefully
This is the use everybody has heard of. Across South Asia and the Middle East, people have for generations tucked a whole clove against a sore tooth and let it soften, or chewed one after a meal for the smell of it. A genuine, very old household tradition, and worth describing honestly as exactly that.
Here is the honest part. Toothache is a signal that something structural is wrong, and a clove does nothing about the cause. Dental pain needs a dentist, not a spice jar, and anything that numbs the feeling can quietly buy time for a real problem to get worse. Treat the clove as the thing you do while you wait for the appointment, not instead of making one.
Clove oil deserves particular respect. It is concentrated and very easy to overdo. Undiluted, it can burn the gum, tongue or lip it touches, and people regularly give themselves a sore patch that outlasts the original ache. It should never be given to infants, and never rubbed on a baby’s gums as a teething remedy. For older children it is safest simply avoided and the question taken to a dentist instead.
You take blood thinning medication, or have surgery or a dental extraction booked, since concentrated clove is traditionally paused well before a procedure. Go easy too with reflux, gastritis or ulcers, because clove is sharp on an already irritated stomach lining. Anyone with liver problems should be especially cautious with clove oil. In pregnancy and breastfeeding, cooking amounts are ordinary food, but clove oil and strong daily infusions are not the place to experiment. Clove allergy is uncommon but real. None of this is medical advice. If you take medication or live with a health condition, ask your own doctor before making any of this a daily habit.
Topical use and the patch test
Clove oil is used in some homemade oil blends for the scalp and for sore joints, always diluted. A workable dilution for skin is 2 drops of clove essential oil into 10 ml of a carrier such as coconut, almond or olive oil, which is a little under one percent. Never apply it neat.
Patch test first. Dab a little on the inside of your forearm, cover loosely, and leave it 24 hours. Redness, itching, heat or stinging at any point means wash it off with soap and water and stop. If a one percent dilution stings on the forearm, it will certainly sting somewhere thinner.
| People say | What’s fair to say |
|---|---|
| Clove oil fixes toothache | Traditionally used for mouth discomfort and it can feel numbing, but it does nothing about the cause. Dental pain needs a dentist. |
| Ground clove is the same as whole | Whole buds keep their oil for roughly a year. Ground powder goes flat in two or three months. |
| More cloves means more flavour | More cloves means only clove. Past four or five in a pot, nothing else gets through. |
| A clove drink settles a heavy stomach | People have long taken a warm infusion after rich food and many find it comfortable. For some, especially with reflux, it does the opposite. |
| Cloves are seeds | They are unopened flower buds, dried whole. |
Try this this week
Buy 50 grams of whole cloves and float test them the moment you get home. Then cook the same everyday dish on two consecutive nights, once with two cloves and once with five. You will learn more in two dinners than in an hour of reading, and you will never over clove a pot again. The rest of the series lives under Desi Remedies.
How many cloves are safe in everyday cooking?
Two to four whole cloves in a pot for four or five people is the ordinary range, and that is food, not a dose. Trouble comes from concentrated clove oil and very strong daily infusions, not from a clove in the rice.
Can I put clove oil on my baby’s gums for teething?
No. Clove oil should never be used on infants and never as a teething remedy. It is potent, easily overdone, and can burn delicate tissue. Teething questions belong with your doctor or dentist.
Why does my ground clove taste of nothing?
Grinding breaks open every oil cell at once and the aroma leaves within weeks. Buy whole buds and crush six or eight in a mortar when you need powder.
Should I stop cloves before an operation?
Concentrated clove products are traditionally paused well ahead of surgery or a dental extraction, and it matters more if you take blood thinners. Tell your surgeon or dentist about every supplement and oil you use and follow their instructions, not a general rule from an article.
This is food and tradition writing, from a kitchen rather than a clinic, and it is not medical advice. Cloves are a superb, powerful, slightly bossy spice, and the way to respect them is to use fewer than you think you need. If you take medication or manage a health condition, ask your own doctor before making any clove preparation a daily habit. For the rest of us, four buds in the rice and a hot pan is plenty.