Ceylon Cinnamon

Ceylon cinnamon is thin, soft, layered bark with a delicate sweet aroma. Cassia is a thick, hard single curl, darker and much blunter. Cassia is also far higher in coumarin, which is why some countries advise limiting it. For everyday use the flavour difference alone is reason enough.

Ceylon quills are made of many thin layers rolled together, like a cigar, and crumble easily by hand. Cassia is one thick curl of bark that you cannot break with your fingers. In powder form you cannot tell, which is the argument for buying it whole.

The inner bark has to be peeled and scraped by hand, then rolled and dried. Cassia bark is simply stripped and dried. The labour difference is most of the price difference.

In ordinary culinary amounts it is widely eaten without issue, but it contains substantially more coumarin than Ceylon cinnamon, and several food authorities suggest moderating regular high intake. If you use cinnamon daily, Ceylon is the safer habit.

By weight, roughly, but the result differs. Cassia is stronger and more pungent, Ceylon more delicate and sweet. Recipes from Sri Lanka, Europe and Mexico usually assume Ceylon; most Indian recipes as written assume cassia.

Roughly four times as long. Whole spice holds its aroma for a year or more because the oils stay sealed inside; once ground, the same spice is noticeably flatter within a few weeks.

Toasting deepens the flavour and is worth doing just before you grind. It does shorten the life of the spice though, so toast only what you are about to use rather than a whole batch.

We buy whole and sell whole, cleaned and sorted, with nothing added - no oil polish to make it glossy, no colour, no bulking material. And we will grind it for you at the counter, so the spice stays whole until the moment you actually need it ground.