Burlap & Barrel Pemba Cloves

From September through November, Bwana Mohammad and his fellow farmers at the 1001 Organic co-op on Pemba, the spice island northeast of Zanzibar, harvest the magenta buds of the clove tree right before they flower. They then sun-dry them in a jungle clearing for a few days before sorting, bagging and boating them to New York, where Ori Zohar and Ethan Frisch bottle them for their sourcing-obsessed spice company, Burlap & Barrel. “Pemba is world-famous for cloves because of their high essential oil content,” says Zohar. “You can press into them with your fingernail and they’re just glistening with oil.” On his last visit to Pemba, Zohar brought home two duffel bags filled with spices—and got stopped by the Zanzibari authorities. Spices here are regarded like gems and gold, as they have since the days when Zanzibar served as a key trading post for the Omani Empire. Fortunately, Zohar had all the proper paperwork. Extra fortunately, you don’t need to jump through any hoops for a taste of the harvest—an instant upgrade to your holiday baking. burlapandbarrel.com