🇮🇩 Indonesia
SPICES
Clove
Like nutmeg, cloves originally grew only in a small cluster of Indonesian islands and became one…
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Clove vs Cardamom
Compare Clove (Indonesia) and Cardamom (India) side by side — origin, maker, price, materials and what the difference actually means.
The short answer
- Country Indonesia India
- Region Maluku Islands, Indonesia Cardamom Hills, Kerala, India
- Made since Traded since ancient times Recorded since antiquity; described botanically in 1811
- Source Indonesia, Madagascar, Tanzania (Zanzibar) Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Side by side
Download as PDF| Field | Clove | Cardamom |
|---|---|---|
| Country | Indonesia | India |
| Type | SPICES | SPICES |
| Maker | Moluccan farmers | — |
| Region | Maluku Islands, Indonesia | Cardamom Hills, Kerala, India |
| Made since | Traded since ancient times | Recorded since antiquity; described botanically in 1811 |
| Verified record | Yes | Yes |
| Market trend | — | $26.51/kg (+172.9% since 2016) |
| Source | Indonesia, Madagascar, Tanzania (Zanzibar) | Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew |
Clove
Like nutmeg, cloves originally grew only in a small cluster of Indonesian islands and became one of the most fought-over
- Zanzibar, off the coast of Tanzania, is still nicknamed "Clove Island" thanks to 19th-century plantation history.
Cardamom
Cardamom is the dried fruit capsule of Elettaria cardamomum, a plant whose native range Kew records as south-west India alone. It is the third most expensive spice in the world after saffron and vanilla, and almost uniquely among spices its price is set in the open, at daily auctions in Kerala whose results the Spices Board of India publishes the same day.
- Kew records the native range as south-west India and nowhere else; everywhere else it grows, it was carried.
- Each capsule holds 15 to 20 seeds, and the aroma is in the seed, not the pod.
- It is the third most expensive spice in the world, after saffron and vanilla.
- The price is set by public auction in Kerala and published the same day by the Spices Board of India.
- On 14 September 2026 two Kerala auction houses sold about 148 tonnes between them.
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