Cinnamon
The aroma and flavour of cinnamon derive from its essential oil and principal component, cinnamaldehyde, as well as numerous other constituents including eugenol.
[5][6] The name "cassia", first recorded in late Old English from Latin, ultimately derives from the Hebrew word קציעה qetsīʿāh, a form of the verb קצע qātsaʿ, "to strip off bark".
[12] Cinnamomum verum, which translates from Latin as "true cinnamon", is native to India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Myanmar.
[15] From the Ptolemaic Kingdom onward, Ancient Egyptian recipes for kyphi, an aromatic used for burning, included cinnamon and cassia.
[18]: 111 Pliny the Elder wrote that cinnamon was brought around the Arabian Peninsula on "rafts without rudders or sails or oars", taking advantage of the winter trade winds.
[21] According to Pliny the Elder, a Roman pound (327 grams [11.5 oz]) of cassia, cinnamon (serichatum), cost up to 1,500 denarii, the wage of fifty months' labour.
From reading Latin writers who quoted Herodotus, Europeans had learned that cinnamon came up the Red Sea to the trading ports of Egypt, but where it came from was less than clear.
When the Sieur de Joinville accompanied his king, Louis IX of France to Egypt on the Seventh Crusade in 1248, he reported—and believed—what he had been told: that cinnamon was fished up in nets at the source of the Nile out at the edge of the world (i.e., Ethiopia).
[26] The first mention that the spice grew specifically in Sri Lanka was in Zakariya al-Qazwini's Athar al-bilad wa-akhbar al-'ibad ("Monument of Places and History of God's Bondsmen") about 1270.
[28] Indonesian rafts transported cinnamon directly from the Moluccas to East Africa (see also Rhapta), where local traders then carried it north to Alexandria in Egypt.
The disruption of this trade by the rise of other Mediterranean powers, such as the Mamluk sultans and the Ottoman Empire, was one of many factors that led Europeans to search more widely for other routes to Asia.
[33] In 1638, Dutch traders established a trading post in Sri Lanka, took control of the manufactories by 1640, and expelled the remaining Portuguese by 1658.
"[34] The Dutch East India Company continued to overhaul the methods of harvesting in the wild and eventually began to cultivate its own trees.
[15] However, in Japan, the more pungent roots are harvested in order to produce nikki (ニッキ) which is a product distinct from cinammon (シナモン shinamon).
A number of pests such as Colletotrichum gloeosporioides, Diplodia species and Phytophthora cinnamomi (stripe canker) can affect the growing plants.
Only 0.5 mm (0.02 in) of the inner bark is used;[40][a] the outer, woody portion is discarded, leaving metre-long cinnamon strips that curl into rolls ("quills") on drying.
A less than ideal drying environment encourages the proliferation of pests in the bark, which may then require treatment by fumigation with sulphur dioxide.
In 2011, the European Union approved the use of sulphur dioxide at a concentration of up to 150 mg/kg (0.0024 oz/lb) for the treatment of C. verum bark harvested in Sri Lanka.
Among cassia, Chinese cinnamon is generally medium to light reddish-brown in colour, hard and woody in texture, and thicker (2–3 mm (0.079–0.118 in) thick), as all of the layers of bark are used.
Indonesian cinnamon is often sold in neat quills made up of one thick layer, capable of damaging a spice or coffee grinder.
[citation needed] In 2021, four countries accounted for 98% of the world's cinnamon production, a total of 226,753 tonnes: China, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka.
Cinnamon powder has long been an important spice in enhancing the flavour of Persian cuisine, used in a variety of thick soups, drinks and sweets.
[49] It is also one of "four sibling spices" (rempah empat beradik) essential in Malay cuisine along with clove, star anise and cardamom.
[54] Cinnamon essential oil can be prepared by roughly pounding the bark, macerating it in sea water, and then quickly distilling the whole.
[70] A meta-analysis of cinnamon supplementation trials with lipid measurements reported lower total cholesterol and triglycerides, but no significant changes in LDL-cholesterol or HDL-cholesterol.
