How is cinnamon grown?
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 str
