Kretek or clove cigarettes. The word is unknown to most people outside Indonesia but anyone who has traveled through the archipelago will surely recall its unmistakable scent. Similarly, Indonesians who have ventured far beyond the borders of their native land find powerful memories of home thrust to the forefront of their minds whenever they catch a whiff of this blend of tobbaco and cloves.

What's so special about kretek?
THE SEARCH FOR SPICES launched the Age of Exploration, and cloves were one of the most coveted export products produced by what is now Indonesia. Today, however, Indonesia consumes all of her own clove production-and then some. Although throughout the centuries cloves have been used for perfume, embalming, relieving tooth pains, sweetening breath, and, of course, spicing food, they are most popular today in the unique clove cigarette. With a pleasant smell almost of incense and a sweet, cool taste something like a mentholated cigarette, clove cigarettes arc Indonesia's favorite smoke. Your first greeting when you land in Indonesia is a whiff of sweet and spicy cloyes as you walk past the airport customs gate.

Indonesians call the cigarettes kretek, an onomatopoeic word that suggests a crackling sound. A leisurely drag on a clove cigarette produces a faint sort of popping sound, like that of a distant forest fire, as the volatile clove oil is released from.-the spice within. Although brands vary in the proportion of cloves to tobacco, a kretek cigarette is about 30-50 percent cloves. Although American plain tobacco brands are also popular, kretek are by far the preferred smoke in Indonesia. In recent years, the scented cigarettes have even made small inroads into the U.S. market, cropping up at specialty tobacconists.

Since an average cigarette contains approximately one gram of cloves. Although precise figures are not available, a good estimate is that well over 100 million kretek cigarettes are manufactured in Indonesia every day. That means that over 100,000 kilograms of cloves are used daily, or about 40,000 metric tons per year, with a value of about U.S. $120 million. Indonesia has to import about 120,000 tons each year and has set self-sufficiency as a target. '11fis is big business. It is estimated that some 80 percent of Indonesia's tax incomc-20 to 25 percent of its total, income- comes from tobacco taxes.

Kretek cigarettes aren't cheap. A single stick of one of the better brands costs about Rp 50. That is considerable fraction of the average daily income of a Balinese, who might expect to cam somewhere in the neighborhood of Rp 1,000. This does not dim the popularity of kretek cigarettes. It is not uncommon to see people purchasing single cigarettes rather than buying them by the pack.

Cloves are the dried, unopened buds, of a tree that is a member of the myrtle or eucalyptus family. There is general disagreement among botanists about its proper genus and species. References are made to: Euqenia aromatica (the genus being named after Prince Eugene of Savoy' a patron of botany and horticulture), Eugenia caryaphyliata, Caiyophyllus aromaticus, Jambosa caryopbyuus, and Syzygium aromaticum. The tongue twister caryophyllus comes from the Greek word for the clove tree, karyopbyllon, from karyon, "nut," and phyllon, "I call" The closest the French could get to this was girop, which is their name for the clove tree - The English had trouble with the French word and changed it to -gilly flower." The French considered that cloves looked like nails. The French word for nail is clou so, in French, cloves are clow de girofle, from which our -clove."

To view our entire line of cigarette brands or to purchase cartons, please click on the link at the top or bottom of any page. There you can browse and shop for premium cigarettes at a price far less than what you will pay in any retail or online cigarette store. All cigarettes are shipped from our Indonesian warehouses directly to your address securely and confidentially. We ship our cigarettes via express air mail all over the world - to end users or to wholesalers.

Supported by a solid team and professional courier service division,We ready to provide excellent services that meet customer's needs with priority of speed, accuracy, safety and security or express delivery.

Professionalism, dedication and 14 (fourteen) years of experience in International Courier Service enable us to cover the customer's requirements in the express delivery business, such as:
• On time pick up and delivery
• Daily status report
• Special (ad Hoc) Service
• Safety, security and reliability
• Time and cost efficiency
• KRETEK (clove cigarette)

The word kretek describes an indigenous Indonesian tobacco product containing tobacco, cloves and flavoring, wrapped in either an ironed cornhusk or a slip of paper. It is widely believed that the name derives from the crackling sound that cloves make when burned - 'keretek-keretek'.

Kretek . The word is unknown to most people outside Indonesia but anyone who has traveled through the archipelago will surely recall its unmistakable scent. Similarly, Indonesians who have ventured far beyond the borders of their native land find powerful memories of home thrust to the forefront of their minds whenever they catch a whiff of this blend of tobbaco and cloves.