Spices & Condiments – Cinnamon

Cinnamon
Botanical Name: Cinnamomum zeylanicum Blume
Family: Lauraceae
Names: Hindi: Darchini; Tamil: Sanna-Iavangapattai, Pattai; Malayalam: Lavangpattai; Gujarati, Urdu, Marathi, Punjabi: Dalchini; Malay: Kayu manis; Sanskrit: Darushila

Composition:
Moisture: 9.9%; Protein: 4.6%; Fat (ether extract) : 2.2%; fibre: 20.3%; carbohydrates: 59.5%; total ash: 3.5%; calcium: 1.6%; phosphorus: 0.05%; iron: 0.004%; sodium: 0.01%; potassium: 0.4%; vitamin B1: 0.14mg/100gm; vitamin B2: 0.21mg/100gm; niacin: 1.9mg/100gm; vitamin C: 39.8mg/100gm; vitamin A: 175 I.U. per 100gm; calorific value: 355 calories per 100gm

Description
Cinnamon is one of the most important tree spices in India. Like its cousin cassia, cinnamon consists layers of dried pieces of the inner bark of branches and young shoots from the evergreen tree Cinnamomum zeylanicum which is obtained when the cork and the cortical parenchyma are removed from the ‘whole bark’. The thickness of the bark ranges from 0.2 to 1.0 mm. Pure cinnamon is free from any admixture with cassia which is considered inferior to the former in appearance, flavour and odour. As stated earlier, cassia is the commonest substitute of cinnamon. While it may be possible morphologically to distinguish one from the other in the whole form, it is difficult to identify them in the powder form.

The quality of cinnamon depends among other factors, on the region where it is grown. Sri Lankan cinnamon and cinnamon from the Seychelles Island are considered to be the best in the world. Cinnamon planted along the coast of Colombo are considered to be the best from Sri Lanka. In India, it is grown on the west-coast. Cinnamon is also planted in Indonesia, Egypt, Brazil and Vietnam.

Preparation and Curing of the Bark
The preparation and curing of the cinnamon bark requires a lot of experience. The various steps involved are:
1. Cutting of branches of the right size and shape during maturity
2. Scraping of the outer rough corky layer
3. Peeling and skillfully removing the bark from the inner wood
4. Piping and preparation of quills
5. Featherings and Chips

Quills:
Quills are known as the long compound rolls of bark upto 1m in length, which constitutes the best grade.

Quillings:
When the quills are being transported or moved, some of them tend to be broken. These smaller fragments are known as ‘quillings‘. They are of course genuine cinnamon and are mainly used for grinding and also for the distillation of the cinnamon bark oil.

Featherings:
Featherings consist of the inner bark of twigs and twisted shoots which cannot give straight quills or quillings of normal length. Thus they are also genuine and are used in the same way as quillings. However, they often contain small chips.

Chips:
Chips include the bark obtained from thick branches and stems, trimmings of the cut shoots before they are peeled, shaving of outer and inner bark which cannot be separated or which are obtained from small twigs by beating or hammering, and odd pieces of outer bark. They invariably contain more or less inferior bark and woody material. This admixture is labelled ‘chips‘ which constitutes the most inferior grade of cinnamon.

Uses
Cinnamon is a very useful tree. Every part of the tree – bark, wood, leaves, buds, flowers, fruits, and roots – finds some use or the other as indicated below.

Cinnamon Bark:
Cinnamon bark is one of the most popular spice in use. It has a delicate fragrance and a warm agreeable taste. It is extensively used in the form of small pieces or powder. It is aromatic, astringent, stimulant and carminative and also possesses the property of checking nausea and vomiting. Cinnamon is used for flavouring confectionery, liquors, pharmaceuticals, soaps and dental preparations. Powdered cinnamon is a constituent of chocolate preparations made in Spain. Cinnamon is also used in candy, gum, incense and perfume.

Bark Oil:
Cinnamon bark contains 0.5 to 1.0% volatile oil. The essential oil, generally manufactured in the USA and Europe is steam distilled mainly from cinnamon chips and residue left over after the preparations of quills for the spice trade. It is light yellow in colour when freshly distilled and changes to red on storage. It contains cinnamaldehyde around 60-75%; eugenol and benzaldehyde. Synthetic cinnamaldehyde and cinnamon leaf oil are the common adulterants for bark oil.

Bark oil is extensively used for flavouring confectionery, liquors, pharmaceuticals, soaps and dental preparations. It has a high germicidal activity (R.W. coefficient, 14.0); but on account of its irritant properties, it is not used as such. It is also a fungicide. It has the cordial and carminative properties of cinnamon without its astrigency and is employed as adjuvant in stomachic and carminative medicine. As a powerful local stimulant, it is sometimes prescribed in gastrodynia, flatulent colic and gastric debility.

Cinnamon Leaf Oil:
Green leaves, on steam distillation, yield 1% essential oil which is generally heavier than water and is aggresive in action. The leaf oil is yellow to yellowish brown with a slight camphoraceous odour resembling that of clove oil. Cinnamon oil has the same content of eugenol as clove oil and is used in making perfumes. It is also used for flavouring sweets and confectionery and is a common adulterant for the bark oil. It is used as an embrocation in rheumatism.

Root Bark Oil
The root bark yields 3% oil which differs from both stem-bark and leaf oils. It is a colourless liquid with a camphoraceous odour. It contains camphor, pinene, cineole, dipentene, phellandrene, eugenol, safrole, caryophyllene, borneol, and possibly cinnamic and benzoic aldehydes. Camphor separates out on allowing the oil to stand. The oil, however is not an article of commerce.

Seed Oil:
Cinnamon seeds contain 33% fixed oil, formerly used for making candles. The oil, also called ‘cinnamon suet’ is obtained by heating to boil crushed ripe fruits suspended in water. The oleaginous matter rises to the surface and solidifies on cooling.

Cinnamon Buds:
Cinnamon buds are useful for flavouring and spicing up food, similar to the cinnamon bark.

Cinnamon Wood:
The wood of the cinnamon tree provides a soft timber for use as a low grade board wood. Timber is moderately soft, not very strong, seasons without difficulty but warps, splits and cracks are liable when strained. It is faintly scented, straight-grained, medium and fairly even textured.

Medicinal Values: