What's Cinnamon, and Which Jar Do You Actually Need?

Most jars sold as cinnamon in the US hold cassia, a stronger and cheaper relative of true Ceylon cinnamon from Sri Lanka. Cassia suits bold baking and long braises. Its far higher coumarin content makes Ceylon the better jar for anyone who uses a spoonful every day.

What is cinnamon?

Cinnamon is the dried bark of several evergreen trees in the genus Cinnamomum, stripped from the branches and left to curl as it dries. Two groups share the name: Ceylon cinnamon, grown mostly in Sri Lanka, and cassia, grown mainly in Indonesia, China and Vietnam.

Cassia is by far the larger crop, so it is the cinnamon most kitchens know.

Plant

Trees of the genus Cinnamomum, in the laurel family

Part used

Dried bark, sold as quills or ground

Two main types

Ceylon (Cinnamomum verum) and cassia (Cinnamomum cassia, Cinnamomum burmannii, Cinnamomum loureiroi)

Main aroma compound

Cinnamaldehyde

Where Ceylon grows

Sri Lanka, around 90 percent of world supply

Where cassia grows

Indonesia, China and Vietnam

The two barks are harvested in very different ways, and that is where the difference in the jar starts.

Ceylon trees are cut back to a stump when young so they send up many thin shoots, and those shoots are cut after the rains, when the bark peels most easily. Peelers scrape off the outer bark, loosen the thin inner bark by rubbing it with a brass rod, and slit it off in long strips.

The strips are then slid one inside another to build a single long quill.

Cassia comes from much older wood. In Kerinci, on Sumatra, the trees grow for about ten years or longer before the whole tree is cut down, and the inner bark of the trunk dries as one thick curl.

The split matters because the two groups differ in more than price. They taste different, they behave differently in a grinder, and they carry very different amounts of coumarin, a natural compound with a daily limit set by European food regulators.

How do Ceylon and cassia cinnamon differ?

The quickest difference to see is the stick itself.

Ceylon quills are rolled from many paper-thin layers of inner bark, pale tan and brittle enough to crumble in your hand. Cassia is a single thick sheet of darker, reddish-brown bark that curls into one hard tube and snaps rather than crumbles.

Flavor follows the same split. Both types get most of their aroma from cinnamaldehyde, and cassia carries more of it.

Ceylon also contains eugenol, the clove-scented compound that makes it taste softer and more layered than cassia.

The price gap comes from the peeling. A skilled peeler in Sri Lanka turns out about 5 kilograms of lower-grade Ceylon in a long day, but only about 1 kilogram of the thinnest grade, because each quill is built by hand from fine strips.

Coumarin is the row that matters for daily users. For most cooking, the choice comes down to whether cinnamon should lead a dish or sit quietly behind it.

Which cinnamon is in a supermarket jar?

In the United States, a jar labeled only "cinnamon" almost always holds cassia. Federal rules treat cassia species as cinnamon, so the label does not have to say which bark is inside.

Most of those jars hold Indonesian cassia, Cinnamomum burmannii, sold in the trade as korintje after the Kerinci district of Sumatra.

A 2013 study of cinnamon products sold in the US found that the ground cinnamon, supplements and flavored foods it tested were most likely this Indonesian species. Korintje is milder than Saigon cassia, and its sweet warmth is what most American cooks picture when they think of cinnamon.

Saigon cassia, Cinnamomum loureiroi from Vietnam, is the strongest of the three and is usually sold under its own name at a higher price. Its bark holds about 4 to 5 percent volatile oil, the highest share among the common types, which is why a little of it tastes hot.

Chinese cassia, Cinnamomum cassia, is the bark most often sold in thick pieces for braises, broths and five-spice powder.

A jar that names its species or origin tells you how strong it will be, and a jar that names nothing is almost certainly korintje.

How is Ceylon cinnamon graded?

Sri Lanka grades Ceylon quills by their width, under the national standard SLS 81. A grade name on a bag of sticks tells you how thick each quill is and how carefully it was rolled.

Every grade is the same species, so a thicker grade has the same low coumarin and the same soft flavor. Alba and Continental sticks matter when the stick is seen, as in a drink or on a plate, while Hamburg sticks and quillings do the same job in a simmering pot or a grinder for less money.

Since 2022, "Ceylon Cinnamon" has also been a protected geographical indication in the European Union. The name can only go on quills, powder and oils from Sri Lanka that follow the registered method.

What does cinnamon taste like?

Cinnamon tastes sweet without containing sugar, with a warm, woody bite that turns hot on the tongue in stronger cassia.

That sweetness is an aroma effect of cinnamaldehyde. It is why a pinch can make oatmeal or baked fruit taste sweeter than it really is.

Heat changes the flavor in two directions.

Gentle heat in fat or liquid carries the aroma through a dish, which is why a stick in simmering milk tastes fuller than powder stirred into cold batter. Cinnamaldehyde dissolves only slightly in water but mixes freely with fat and alcohol, so butter, cream and mulled wine pick up more flavor than plain water does.

Dry high heat does the opposite, and ground cinnamon scorches quickly in a hot empty pan.

Outside North America and northern Europe, cinnamon is at least as often a savory spice. In those dishes meat, onion and chili give its sweetness something to balance, so it reads as warmth rather than dessert.

How is cinnamon used in different cuisines?

Each cuisine tends to use the bark that its own trade brought in, and that choice changes the flavor of the finished dish. A Mexican recipe written for soft Ceylon canela can taste harsh with cassia, while a Chinese braise made with Ceylon can lose some of its bite.

Mexico buys more Sri Lankan cinnamon than any other country, and nearly all the cinnamon it uses is Ceylon. That is why canela sold in Latin American markets in the US is usually soft, layered Ceylon.

Most of the dalchini sold in India is cassia, and its stronger flavor holds its own against the cloves, cardamom and chili in garam masala and biryani.

In Vietnamese pho broth and Chinese red-braising, cassia bark goes in whole and simmers for an hour or more. Cooks there favor cassia because the thick bark holds up to long cooking and gives up its flavor slowly.

Greek cooks put cinnamon and cloves in the meat sauce under the béchamel of pastitsio and moussaka. Cincinnati chili, created in the 1920s by Macedonian immigrants, carries the same habit into an American dish, with cinnamon and allspice in a beef sauce served over spaghetti.

How do you cook with cinnamon sticks and ground cinnamon?

Sticks and powder do different jobs. A stick releases its aroma slowly into liquid and comes out before serving, while ground cinnamon spreads through a batter, rub or sauce at once and stays there.

The working rule is sticks for anything that simmers and powder for anything baked, rubbed or stirred in at the end.

Soft Ceylon quills grind easily in a spice grinder. Cassia quills are hard enough to jam or blunt a home blade, so ground cassia is worth buying already milled.

Drinks are where sticks are most often wasted. A stick dropped into a hot cup gives off little flavor in the few minutes before you drink it.

Simmering a broken stick in the liquid for ten minutes or more is what gives chai, mulled wine and spiced cider their cinnamon backbone.

• Broths, braises and riceAdd a whole stick with the liquid and lift it out before serving.
• Milk and creamWarm a broken stick in the milk before adding sugar or eggs, since fat carries cinnamon aroma better than water.
• Chai and mulled drinksBreak the stick and simmer it before the tea or wine goes in.
• CoffeeStir ground cinnamon into the coffee grounds before brewing, or warm it in the milk.
• Iced drinksSimmer a strong syrup or concentrate, then dilute and chill it. Cold water pulls little flavor from bark.
• Cakes, cookies and rubsUse ground cinnamon, which spreads evenly through dry mixes.
• Yeast breads and rollsKeep most of the cinnamon in the filling or swirl, away from the dough.
• Sauces and stewsStir ground cinnamon into the hot fat with the onions so it does not clump in the liquid.

Ground cinnamon is fine bark, and bark does not dissolve. Spooned into a cup of coffee it floats and then settles as grit, so brewing it with the grounds or mixing it into warm milk gives a smoother cup.

Yeast doughs have their own limit. Cinnamaldehyde slows yeast, and King Arthur Baking puts the ceiling at about 1 teaspoon per 3 cups of flour before the rise slows noticeably.

That is why cinnamon rolls and swirl breads keep the cinnamon in a separate layer of butter and sugar. The dough rises normally, and the filling still tastes strongly of cinnamon.

Ground cinnamon gains the most from blooming in fat for a few seconds, and it burns if the pan is dry or the heat stays high.

A used stick can go around a second time in something forgiving, such as a pot of rice, once it has been rinsed and dried. One that sat in milk or syrup is better thrown out, since the sugar and dairy on its surface can spoil in storage.

How much cinnamon should you use?

Cinnamon is easy to overdo because a little powder covers a lot of food. Most recipes use between half a teaspoon and two teaspoons for a standard cake or batch of cookies, and cassia needs less than Ceylon for the same effect.

Those amounts are starting points, since cassia strength varies from jar to jar.

Too much cinnamon makes food taste dusty and slightly bitter rather than warmer. When a dish tastes flat and generically spiced, cutting back the cinnamon usually brings the other spices forward faster than adding more of anything.

How much coumarin is in cassia cinnamon?

Coumarin is a natural compound in cassia that can harm the liver in sensitive people at high, sustained intakes. The European Food Safety Authority set a tolerable daily intake of 0.1 milligrams per kilogram of body weight, which works out to about 6 milligrams a day for a 60 kilogram adult.

Cassia carries enough coumarin to reach that figure with ordinary spoon measures.

Food monitoring reported by Germany's Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) found cassia averages about 3 grams of coumarin per kilogram, with some samples near 10 grams. At the average level, about 2 grams of cassia a day reaches the limit for a 60 kilogram adult, and that is less than one level teaspoon.

Tolerable daily intake

0.1 mg coumarin per kg body weight (EFSA)

For a 60 kg adult

About 6 mg a day

Coumarin in cassia

About 3 g per kg on average, up to about 10 g (BfR)

Cassia that reaches the limit

About 2 g a day at average coumarin, for a 60 kg adult

For a 15 kg child

About 0.5 g of cassia a day (BfR)

One level teaspoon, ground

About 2.6 g

Coumarin in Ceylon

Traces only

That limit describes a lifelong daily habit, and the BfR notes that going slightly over it for a week or two is not a concern. Occasional baking sits far below it, because a teaspoon spread through a tray of cinnamon rolls becomes a small fraction per serving.

The evidence behind the limit comes from coumarin given as a medicine, where a small group of sensitive patients developed liver problems that usually cleared once they stopped.

The BfR says no such liver damage from eating cinnamon has been described.

Children reach the limit sooner because they weigh less. For a 15 kilogram child, half a gram of cassia a day is the full allowance, about a fifth of a level teaspoon.

European law also caps coumarin in finished foods, at 50 milligrams per kilogram for traditional cinnamon bakery goods and 20 for breakfast cereals.

The pattern that adds up is a heaped spoonful of cassia every morning, often taken in oatmeal or coffee for blood sugar reasons. Cinnamon capsules raise the same question, because the BfR warns that supplements may contain large amounts of cassia.

Coumarin is also often confused with the blood thinner warfarin. Coumarin itself does not thin the blood, and warfarin was developed from dicoumarol, a different compound that molds make from coumarin in spoiled sweet clover.

For a daily habit, Ceylon removes the question, since it contains only traces of coumarin. A labeled jar of Ceylon costs more, but a daily spoonful uses very little of it.

Is ground cinnamon safe after the lead alerts?

The FDA alerts named specific brands of ground cinnamon and told consumers to throw those products away.

The problem surfaced in October 2023, when apple cinnamon fruit pouches sold for children were recalled for lead. FDA investigators traced it to ground cinnamon from Ecuador with 2,270 to 5,110 parts per million of lead, and the agency considers the contamination likely deliberate.

Lead chromate, the pigment known as chrome yellow, has a history of being added to ground spices to brighten their color and add weight. The FDA then tested ground cinnamon from discount stores, and on March 6, 2024 it named six brands with lead between 2.03 and 3.4 parts per million.

The later alerts found levels far below the pouch case, and the FDA reported no illnesses linked to those products.

Most of the named brands were sold through discount chains and small independent grocers.

The problem is not limited to the US. A 2025 study of 104 cinnamon samples bought across Europe found about 1 in 10 above the European lead limit of 2 milligrams per kilogram, and ground products showed more problems than whole bark.

When the alerts were issued, the FDA had no set lead limit for spices, so its published brand lists are the practical check for a jar already in the cupboard.

Who should be careful with cinnamon?

Outside coumarin and lead, the real risks come from cinnamon in forms a kitchen rarely uses: a dry spoonful, a concentrated oil, or a flavoring in gum.

Swallowing a spoonful of dry ground cinnamon, the online "cinnamon challenge", can send powder into the lungs because the dry dust makes people gag and gasp. US poison centers logged 51 such calls in 2011 and 178 in the first half of 2012, and about 30 of those callers needed medical care.

Cinnamon oil is far stronger than the spice, and its main compound, cinnamaldehyde, can irritate or even burn skin when the oil sits on it undiluted.

A few people develop a delayed allergy to cinnamaldehyde, often from cinnamon gum, candy or toothpaste. It shows up as burning, swollen or sore patches inside the mouth, and it usually clears when the person stops using cinnamon-flavored products.

Anyone with a known reaction can find more on spice allergies and intolerances. For everyone else, cinnamon cooked into food at normal amounts carries none of these risks.

What can you substitute for cinnamon?

Cinnamon supplies both a sweet aroma and the woody base that holds other warm spices together. A substitute usually covers one of those jobs and misses the other.

Pumpkin pie spice is the easiest swap because cinnamon is usually its main ingredient.

Allspice comes closest among single spices in cakes and fruit fillings, although its clove note grows quickly at full strength.

Nutmeg and mace suit dairy and eggs, where cinnamon was often playing a quiet supporting role anyway.

In a savory braise, pho or tagine, leaving cinnamon out usually works better than swapping in something else. The dish tastes a little incomplete without it, and a wrong substitute pulls it toward a different cuisine.

How do you buy and store cinnamon?

A label that names the species or origin is the most useful thing on a cinnamon jar. "Ceylon" or Cinnamomum verum means true cinnamon, while "Saigon", "Vietnamese", "korintje" or "Indonesian" all mean a type of cassia.

In the 2025 European study, about 9 percent of samples sold as Ceylon were partly or wholly cassia.

• Named typeCeylon, Saigon, korintje or Chinese tells you the strength and the coumarin level before the jar is open.
• Stick layersCeylon quills show many thin layers at the cut end, and cassia shows one thick curl.
• ColorGround Ceylon tends to be lighter tan and ground cassia darker and redder, but color alone cannot confirm the type.
• SmellFresh cinnamon smells sweet and sharp as soon as the lid comes off. A faint, dusty smell means old stock.
• Alert listsAn unfamiliar discount brand of ground cinnamon is worth checking against the FDA lead alert list.
• PriceVery cheap "Ceylon" deserves doubt, since true Ceylon costs noticeably more than cassia.

Powder is the hard case. The BfR notes that shoppers can hardly tell ground Ceylon from ground cassia, so a buyer who needs Ceylon for daily use can grind soft Ceylon sticks at home, where the layered quill proves the type.

Whole sticks hold their aroma longer than powder, because the oils stay sealed inside the bark until it is broken. Both forms last longest in an airtight jar kept away from the stove and sunlight.

Ground cinnamon that has lost its smell is not unsafe, but it adds little beyond color.