Although it’s one of the most popular and tastiest spices on the planet, not many people know where cinnamon comes from.
This common spice is a great food enhancer and combines perfectly with savory dishes such as soups and tagines, but it also goes well with chicken and meat. However, most of you will agree that it simply does wonders to desserts like churros, cobblers, even to your fruit salads, ice-cream and pancakes.
This spice offers a number of health benefits including higher weight loss results, improved sleep quality and better overall health.
Not rarely, cinnamon also takes part in many beauty rituals.
Even though we commonly use this spice, we hardly ever question ourselves where it comes from. The truth is this spice is made from the inner layer of bark of several varieties of evergreen trees belonging to the Cinnamomum family.
The production process includes several stages. First, the farmers shave off the outer bark of the trees. Then they do the same on the inner bark, i.e. the cinnamon layer, which is then dried. When the cinnamon layer has dried, it curls naturally into quills. From here, the quills are either cut into cinnamon sticks or crushed to powder. It’s good to know that there’s no such thing as genuine cinnamon spice. It’s a common misconception that Ceylon cinnamon is the ‘real’ cinnamon, probably because of its name, Cinnamomum verum. However, Cassia, or scientifically called Cinnamomum Cassia, is just as real. Another thing worth mentioning is that most of the world’s Ceylon cinnamon (80-90%) is produced in Sri Lanka, whereas Cassia cinnamon mostly comes from Indonesia, which accounts for 70% of Cassia cinnamon production on world level.
The rest of this spice is produced in China, Vietnam and Burma.
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