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🇱🇰 Sri Lanka
Spice
Cinnamon
One name, five trees — and the cheap one outsells the real one ninety-nine to one
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Cinnamon vs Vanilla
Compare Cinnamon (Sri Lanka) and Vanilla (Madagascar) side by side — origin, maker, price, materials and what the difference actually means.
The short answer
- Country Sri Lanka Madagascar
- Maker Smallholder bark peelers of the southwestern wet zone Smallholder growers of the SAVA region
- Region Southwestern Sri Lanka (Galle, Matara, Ratnapura) SAVA (Sambava, Antalaha, Vohemar, Andapa)
- Made since 1270 1841
- Family Lauraceae Orchidaceae (the only orchid grown for food)
- Commodity code (HS) 090610 090510
Side by side
Download as PDF| Field | Cinnamon | Vanilla |
|---|---|---|
| Country | Sri Lanka | Madagascar |
| Type | Spice | Spice |
| Maker | Smallholder bark peelers of the southwestern wet zone | Smallholder growers of the SAVA region |
| Region | Southwestern Sri Lanka (Galle, Matara, Ratnapura) | SAVA (Sambava, Antalaha, Vohemar, Andapa) |
| Made since | 1270 | 1841 |
| Verified record | Yes | Yes |
| Source | Wikipedia | Wikipedia |
| Family | Lauraceae | Orchidaceae (the only orchid grown for food) |
| Commodity code (HS) | 090610 | 090510 |
Cinnamon
True cinnamon is the inner bark of Cinnamomum verum, from Sri Lanka. Almost everything sold as cinnamon is cassia, a different tree from a different country, carrying up to a hundred times more coumarin. Laboratory testing keeps finding cassia inside jars labelled Ceylon.
- Ceylon cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum) is what traders and botanists call true cinnamon, but most cinnamon in world commerce is one of four other species, correctly called cassia
- World production of cinnamon was 238,403 tonnes in 2023, led by China with 39%
- Four countries account for 98% of world production: China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Sri Lanka
- Coumarin content per gram: Ceylon 0.005-0.090 mg, Chinese cassia 1.74-7.67 mg, Indonesian cassia 2.14-9.30 mg, Saigon cassia 1.06-6.97 mg
- The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment sets a tolerable daily intake of 0.1 mg of coumarin per kg of body weight
Vanilla
Vanilla is the seed pod of a climbing orchid that will not set fruit on its own outside Mesoamerica. Every flower on every farm in the world is pollinated by hand, on the one day it opens. That single fact explains the price — and the price has moved from $73 a kilogram to $457 and back to $51 inside a decade.
- Every vanilla flower grown commercially is pollinated by hand, and each one has to be done within twelve hours of opening
- The flower of Vanilla planifolia lasts about one day, sometimes less, so plantations are inspected every morning of the season
- A wild vanilla orchid has only about a 1% chance of being pollinated even inside its native range
- The pod takes five to six weeks to form and around six months to mature, before months of curing
- An estimated 95% of products flavoured 'vanilla' use vanillin synthesised from lignin rather than the pod
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