An essential ingredient in global cuisine, cinnamon as we would recognised it is the peeled bark of the cinnamon tree rolled in to “sticks” and often thence ground to a powder. Louis IX of France reportedly believed that cinnamon was fished up in nets at the source of the Nile “on the edge of the world”, In fact Cinnamomum Verum or True Cinnamon, originated from Sri Lanka and was first brought to Egypt and on into Europe as long as 4000 years ago.
Whilst cinnamon was originally native to Sri Lanka’s hill country, these days it can be found across all parts of the island from up-country commercial cinnamon estates to domestic cinnamon gardens in the grounds of coastal villas.
Picture courtesy of Shikra Cinnamon, Dondra