Djarum Black kreteks (clove cigarettes)
Clove cigarettes are my one true vice. Daily news reports transform our previous sins into health fads; remember when meat, red wine, chocolate, coffee, and tomatoes were considered bad for you? Cloves will never suffer that disgrace. They are the fried Twinkies of the cigarette world: tasty and flagrantly unhealthy.
Smoking cloves was a secret, forbidden treat when I was a Goth teenager; they were virtually hard drugs. In junior high health class, we were taught that cloves were especially harmful; that they would eat great bleeding holes in your lungs. Thus, choosing to smoke them is akin to a death-wish, a particularly horrible death. This is also fitting to the Goth attitude. Even the black paper hints, "I am death, evil, and rebellious."
Djarum Blacks are rough, yet pungent and spicy. The sweet flavor of the sauce-dipped filter provides a contrast to the lung-wringing sensations. They make your mouth numb and your body languorous. Their smell conjures images of decadent, gritty opium dens, swathed in moth-eaten oriental rugs and absinthe-swilling poets.
Djarum Black kreteks are tightly packed, so as they burn, the cherry often becomes overly long, refusing to be tapped shorter, but sometimes dropping off unexpectedly in your lap. The distinctive crackle of burning clove fragments (which gave them their Indonesian name 'kretek') is often accompanied by showers of sparks and flying embers. I find these add to the element of danger and excitement.
I most enjoy smoking Black kreteks outside, in the dark.
redplanet@trinidadusa.net
