How to collect real cinnamon in Sri Lanka (9 photos)

For a long time, cinnamon was a real mystery for all of Europe, because this mysterious spice was not like any other spice, and it was delivered by Arab traders from the then little-explored East. Everything changed only in the 15th century, when the Portuguese settled in Sri Lanka and began to build their monopoly on the extraction and delivery of cinnamon.





I am always interested in learning how things that can be found in any kitchen grow and are harvested. After all, everyone knows about cinnamon, but few people have been able to see it in person. And although Sri Lanka is the same Ceylon, the tea from which is known throughout the world, I also took the time to inspect the cinnamon plantations. To begin with, I went to the non-tourist area of the town of Baddegama.



It turned out to be quite easy to find cinnamon plantations, because it grows here in almost every area. Cinnamon is in some ways similar to tea: it’s an ordinary, unremarkable tree; from the outside you can’t even tell that it’s a plant that has conquered the whole world. As soon as I approached the cinnamon, a local came out with the dogs. In Sri Lanka, the majority of the population knows English well, and I was able to calmly explain that I was not a thief, but just a curious tourist. A local broke off a cinnamon stick for me and used a knife to remove a layer of bark, which even in its raw form tastes like a spice. The plantation turned out to be small, so I moved on.





On the way I came across a large plantation, but it was surrounded by a fence.



And here, finally, is the ennobled plantation. The area of the tourist resort of Hikkaduwa, so they calmly let me have a look.



The process of preparing cinnamon. A thin layer of bark is removed, which is then hung from the ceiling to dry. As the owner of the plantation told me, cinnamon pickers receive more or less adequate money.



Cinnamon leaves are used to obtain oil, so the production is waste-free.



Evaporation of oil. After removing the bark, the cinnamon stems go into the oven.



A few words about what real cinnamon is. On the left in the image is real Ceylon cinnamon, a thin crumbly layer of bark from an evergreen tree of the Cinnamon genus. Strong noble spice. On the right is that in our stores cinnamon is almost always sold “under the label”. In fact, it is not cinnamon at all, but cassia, a thick and rough layer of bark from the Chinese cinnamon tree. These spices are similar in taste, but in terms of its qualities, cassia is noticeably inferior to real cinnamon. They are quite easy to distinguish by appearance: cinnamon is less dense and easily broken by hand, while cassia is dense and feels like a piece of wood. It’s quite difficult to find real cinnamon in regular stores, but you can buy it from us in specialized spice shops.

If you order coffee with “cinnamon” at a coffee shop, there will almost always be cassia.