Cinnamon
One of the oldest and most flavor filled spices known to man is cinnamon.
The fine inner skin of fragrant tree bark, cinnamon and cassia trees grow
wild throughout Asia. It takes twenty to thirty years of growth before cinnamon
can be harvested from a tree. Then the trees continue to grow and produce
cinnamon for many years. At harvest time native farmhands gather and travel
to the sometimes very remote areas where the trees grow. For cinnamon sticks,
the upper branches are carefully cut and the inner bark removed, which curls
naturally into quills. Cinnamon sticks are attractive and uniform, but relatively
low in flavor. For ground cinnamon, large chunks are removed from the lower,
older bark, which is stronger and more flavorful. There are two main types
of cinnamon. Cassia cinnamon is native to Southeast Asia, especially southern
China and northern Vietnam, and has the strong, spicy-sweet flavor most
Americans are familiar with. Vietnamese and Chinese cassia are the sweetest
and strongest varieties, with Korintje cassia having a smooth flavor with
less bite. Our cinnamon sticks and Korintje cinnamon both come from the
southwest coast of Sumatra in Indonesia. It grows wild on the government-protected
slopes of Mount Kerinci, where the cinnamon gets its name. We stock the
top Korintje A grade, although there are also the lower B and C grades,
which are the types of cinnamon usually sold in supermarkets in the U.S.
From the mountain slopes, where it is harvested, it is trucked down to the
port town of Padang where it is graded and washed. Then it is either cracked
for Korintje A, or cut for sticks. Our Vietnamese cassia comes from the
remote north and west regions of Vietnam. It is processed in a small, beautiful
village, about 30 kilometers west of Hanoi. The people here have been harvesting
and cracking cinnamon for over 400 years (maybe even longer). Large thick
sticks about 18 inches long and 2 inches in diameter are brought in from
the countryside. These are then cleaned and sorted into varying grades depending
on the flavor. The strength of the flavor of spices depends upon the essential
oil content-the higher the level, the stronger the flavor. The sticks are
stored in large colonial style warehouse rooms. When orders for cinnamon
come in, the large sticks are cracked into slightly smaller pieces and packed
into burlap bags for shipment. Most of the work is done by local farmers
to supplement the meager income they receive from their rice crops ($200
per year). Cassia Buds, which are rarely available, are the unripened flower
buds of the same tree that gives us our China Cassia Cinnamon. The flavor
is similar to cassia cinnamon, but both sharper and more flowery. The second
type of cinnamon, Ceylon, or "true" cinnamon, has a much different flavor.
It is less sweet, with a more complex, citrus flavor. Ceylon Cinnamon is
also known as old-fashioned cinnamon and is prized in many other areas of
the world. The special flavor of English and Mexican sweets comes from Ceylon
cinnamon. |
