Ingredients · Spice
Ceylon Cinnamon
Cinnamomum verum · Lauraceae (laurel family)
What it’s like, and how to use it
How to use it
Where cinnamon is the point rather than the background — custards, rice pudding, poached fruit, delicate baking, a good hot chocolate. Its softness is lost in a heavily spiced blend, where a cassia type does the job better and cheaper. The quills crumble easily, which makes it good for grinding fresh.
With food
Cream, custard and rice pudding. Apple and pear. Chocolate. Citrus. Almond. Honey. Coffee.
With spices
Cardamom and vanilla, both of which it suits better than cassia does. Nutmeg. Cloves, lightly. Ginger.
With tea
Ceylon black tea, from the same island. Rooibos. Assam. A milk tea, where its floral side shows.
Its story
Where it comes from
Sri Lanka is the home of Cinnamomum verum. Our product is titled Sri Lankan True Ceylon, which is a trade-origin label; the growing estate is not something we can confirm without the supplier's record. "Ceylon cinnamon calgary" is one of the most searched phrases that reaches this shop.
What happened
Ceylon cinnamon's history is a colonial one and should be told plainly. Portugal reached the island in 1505 and sought to control its cinnamon; the Dutch set up a trading post in 1638 and expelled the last Portuguese by 1658; the British took Ceylon from the Dutch in 1796. Through all three, the bark was peeled by the Salagama, a caste whose ancestors were a South Indian weaving community and who were ordered into cinnamon work in the fifteenth century. Under Portuguese rule they owed cinnamon as a tax. Under the Dutch they worked to rising quotas, boys from about twelve, and those who fled were flogged, chained, branded and had their ears cut off. That history is only now being written, largely through the doctoral work of Dr Dilhani Dissanayake.
On the shelf with it
Sold on its own, and in these blends.
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Cinnamon, Ground, Sri Lankan True Ceylon, Organic
Regular price From $9.99 CADRegular price
