Heawans Organic Whole Nutmeg 4.5 oz, Premium Grade, Packed in a stand up resealable pouch.

Can you handle the truth? I was very excited to order a whole nutmeg seed. How does it taste? What is it's consistency? Is it better than old, stale, sitting on the store shelf glass jar of nutmeg, or the one that sat in your kitchen cabinets for the last ten years (atleast that's the case for me). Let's find out! Read on! 😁 Well, as you can see from the photo...you get 11 seeds which are neatly wrapped and sealed in a pouch. Promptly delivered and super fresh, organic and clean. A+ for delivery. This is my first exposure to whole organic nutmeg! What is it? So, it is a seed that grows from a pine-like tree located only (back in the day) in a tiny, itsy, bitsy chain of 6 or so islands in Indonesia. The Dutch were the merchant traders who first discovered this spice which brought them great profit margins and ultimately was the financial drive that spurred Queen Isabella to take the monetary risks to invest in Christopher Columbus' quest to take 3 tiny ships where no ship had gone before (like in Star Trek) in order to locate the back route across the globe. It was well established that the world was round but the historians INCORRECTLY taught our kids and us these false fables in grammer school. The Portuguese navigators had well established that the world was round as the Portuguese had sophisticated maps of how they could secretly sail without sight of the West African coast. Perhaps, the continuation of a scary story about falling off a flat earth helped to keep the commodity scarce and prices high. The Dutch merchants bring to mind the movies depicting the Columbus era docks bustling with commerce from the "Spice Islands". We all have that picture in our memories. What we do not have stored in our memories are of how the smiling, gentle merchants had Captains & crews who sailed across in nearly intergalactic (at that time) travel to a mystical, secret island that was the only place in the ENTIRE WORLD that grew nutmeg. Nutmeg was deemed to have powerful medicinal properties which included the (false) ability to cure the Black Plague. So. the drive to seal off the ability for any other country to siphon off these incredible profits was extremely high. So much so that the 15,000 people (native Indonesians who lived there for centuries) were all killed leaving less than a 1,000 survivors who were turned into slaves. A bunch of nice guys for sure. Eventually, they transplanted a portion of these pine trees in order to increase their profits. They were transplanted to Grenada and other Micronesia region islands. The power of commerce. Sad if you were one of the original 15,000 inhabitants who led a charmed island life. So, in the photo you can see a light, dry, light-brown colored nut that is slightly oval in shape. It is the color of light brown wood. History can be fascinating. In the US Revolutionary War period of time, the Connecticut traders would have people carving thousands of nutmeg balls out of wood. Since it weighed about the same as wood, and was about the same hardness...you couldn't tell the difference when mixed in a barrel of genuine nutmeg balls. This deception led to the 1776-era phrase of a "wooden nutmeg" which meant fraud! Interesting eh? Upon cutting open the sealed bag, I got a very, very, very strong scent of (as other reviewers noted): Pinesol, pine sap, cleaning chemicals, and other nose clearing scents! Wow. I first (incorrectly) surmised that this was some chemical residue of some agent used to strip off the fruit (see photo for unpeeled green fruit). I purchased a special product made by Microplane (see photo) which is designed specially to grate nutmeg. It is short and stubby since you are only grating a 1 inch nut. It is devilishly sharp. It is circular at the point of contact but overall the cutting blade is an open oval. See photo. I MUST say that if you do this, BUY A MICROPLANE FOR NUTNEG ON AMAZON! It gets an A++++. Grating the nutmeg is shockingly easy. To describe it best would be to say that you thought you were going to grate a Connecticut wooden nutmeg but when you started grating... it was like grating a soft piece of cheddar cheese. Then, the next surprise is that the grated nutmeg powder is not dark brown like every nutmeg that I have ever used at Starbucks. Looking at the photo, it looks like light brown sawdust. I know, nothing but surprises, but the next surprise is that the grated nutmeg powder is SOFT! I was shocked. It felt like grated sponge powder. Ok, taste? Well, before that: aroma. Aroma is like Pinesol. I cannot explain the aroma any other way. If your New Year's eggnog is laden with this fresh, organic nutmeg, then you had better be sure to buy many extra bottles of hard booze. As an aside, if you have a cold..I believe this IS A FANTASTIC WAY TO RELIEVE NASAL CONGESTION! NO KIDDING! Or stick two pine needles up each nostril. I am flummoxed!!! I am sitting here with my freshly pulled expresso coffee...that was supposed to have been flavored with DELICIOUS ORGANIC NUTMEG. And I simply cannot get the pine flavor out of my mouth. No kidding! I do not know how to get this pine flavor out of my mouth! And I love the nutmeg flavor and aroma...but I have had neither...except for this dastardly, incessant medicinal-chemical-pine flavor in my mouth. I truly would like to hear comments from those who feel that this is fabulous nutmeg flavor...really...please comment! Ok, there is no taste. After all this work, there is no taste. Well, perhaps I should say that if there is a true nutmeg taste...it is obscured by the Pinesol flavor. I am not kidding. I feel like I slept under the Christmas tree with a branch inadvertently sitting in my open, snorting mouth. Is this genuine or a "wooden nutmeg"? I am perplexed because I believe this to be genuine...so, why is there such a difference between my expectations and reality? I dunno! Please comment, BUY IT if this meets YOUR EXPECTATIONS. Meanwhile, I will have to figure out how long will I have this pine flavor in my mouth? I need help!

fresh and fragrant

Adding this seasoning to my sweet potato pies made a world of difference. The taste was awesome. Only used a little more than a forth teaspoon in two pies.

I got this to try for mulled wine and spiced jams. The zing is really nice! It still has the classic nutmeg flavor but also a bit of bite. I found a nutmeg grater to go with it but I imagine any fine grater would work. This is about a ten year supply for me lol bc a little goes a long way...guess I will be in the kitchen if u need me. Great value, very fresh tasting.

For anyone who is wondering if these are processed along with tree nuts, I have to break it to you — nutmeg IS a tree nut — albeit an extremely aromatic tree nut. The word “nutmeg” comes from the latin Nux Muga — “musk nut.” It is so filled with aromatic oils that if you ate several nutmegs, you would get quite sick. However, shave off just a little, and it imparts a delicious flavor — think of nutmeg as the fugu of the spice world. These particular nutmegs are especially fresh and oily, compared to the ones you might buy in the supermarket (and certainly compared to the ten-year old ones you have sitting in the back of your spice rack!) When I received these, I was pleased to find that they were quite large — about 2-3 cm in diameter. To fit a particularly large one into my nutmeg grinder, I needed to slice it; and when I did, the inner surface glistened with oil. Nutmeg mostly gets its characteristic flavor from myristic acid and myristicin (which if taken in excess causes a rather unpleasant dull-headed “high”), but fresh nutmeg will still have plenty of much more volatile terpenes like beta-pinene and limonene. So, these fresher nutmegs will have a brighter, Lemon Pledge & Pine Needle character to them. This is actually an indication of their freshness. If you don’t like it, simply let your nutmegs sit out for a while. Then by the time you are ready to use them next Christmas, the lighter volatiles will have evaporated — simulating the long sea journey they used to make from the Spice Islands of Indonesia to medieval Europe — leaving you with an aroma and flavor more similar to what you are used to!

It's nutmeg and I use quite a bit of it frequently. As one commenter/chef stated it is a different flavor profile from what you buy in the store. Can't say that it is better or worse but definitely different. If you are cooking with it then this is probably better. If you are putting a little over some eggnog or hot toddy then I personally think the average store variety freshly ground might be better. Certainly much less expensive than the grocery store variety.

Quality seems good.

Excellent product,great price & fast delivery! Def buying again