Narrator: This cinnamon was once as valuable as gold.
It's known as Ceylon cinnamon, or true cinnamon,
and it's healthier and sweeter than other kinds.
Sri Lanka produces 90% of the world's supply.
But true cinnamon is up against a powerful rival,
a lower-quality kind called cassia.
It can be unhealthy in large amounts,
but it's up to 10 times cheaper,
so it dominates the global market.
The problem is cassia
and Ceylon look nearly identical in powder form,
and loose labeling laws make it easy for brands
to mix in cheap cassia with the more expensive stuff
or replace it completely.
So why is this Sri Lankan spice considered
to be the best cinnamon in the world?
And how do you know it's actually what's in your spice rack?
Suneth harvests cinnamon for Rathna,
one of Sri Lanka's largest producers.
He starts working in the fields
before sunrise so he can harvest the spice
while there's moisture in the air.
Ceylon comes from the inner bark of cinnamon tree branches.
They have to be cut at an inward angle.
If Suneth cuts carefully,
he can harvest each tree for half a century.
Narrator: After about four hours of cutting, he hauls the last batch
of branches back to the estate's main building.
Each bundle of branches is soaked in a water tank
for at least 15 minutes.
This will make the bark easier to peel off.
Suneth's work has just begun.
Until at least 10 p.m.,
he works with a team of peelers, like Saman,
to scrape each branch one by one.
It exposes a softer inner bark.
This is the actual cinnamon.
Narrator: Brass rods smooth the surface
and loosen the cinnamon from the hard wood.
Then, with surgical precision,
they carve and slice the bark
into thin strips known as quills.
The quills are so thin
that they immediately curl up as they dry.
Small pieces of inner bark, called quillings, prevent rips.
Saman gets paid by the weight.
Narrator: The quills typically need to dry for a week.
Then they're sent off to the factory to be processed.
Fifteen minutes down the road,
sorters determine the value of each quill.
The thinner the quill, the more expensive it is.
Just like meat, cinnamon gets a grade.
Rathna uses eight in total, all based on diameter.
The highest quality, known as Alba, is as thin as a pencil.
It's twice as valuable as H2 FAQ, the lowest grade.
Only one in about 25 quills gets the Alba grade.
Sorters like Violet grade thousands of quills a day.
And she can grade each one in a few seconds.
Once the quills are sorted,
they cut them into different lengths
and package them up for shipping.
The long cuts are packaged in bulk to be sold wholesale.
Shorter 3-inch sticks go to grocery stores.
But for much of human history,
a sack of this cinnamon would have been worth a fortune.
The spice was traded across the ancient world
since at least 2000 BC.
Merchants peddled legends
that the sweet-smelling bark came from the nest
of a mythical bird.
At one point, cinnamon was more valuable than gold.
By the 13th century,
Sri Lanka had begun exporting the spice directly to Egypt,
and Arab traders brought it to medieval Europe.
Ceylon cinnamon was so sought-after,
it became a status symbol for the rich.
Soon, European countries wanted
to profit off the trade themselves.
For more than 300 years, the Portuguese, Dutch,
and British fought over the island
and control of its valuable exports.
The country declared independence
and regained control of its cinnamon lands in 1948.
But by then, a cheaper alternative,
cassia, had already begun to dominate the market.
Cassia comes from a totally different tree,
which grows taller and has thicker bark.
Most of it is produced on farms
in East or Southeast Asia,
like this one in Indonesia.
The country has roughly twice the amount
of cinnamon plantations as Sri Lanka.
Producers can harvest entire trees at one time.
The process requires fewer workers
and makes it easier to produce in bulk.
Cassia farmers can harvest 10 times the amount
of cinnamon per acre than Ceylon farmers.
But cassia could pack hidden health risks.
Ceylon cinnamon boosts the immune system,
lowers blood pressure, and stabilizes blood sugar.
Cassia has health benefits, too,
but it contains high levels of a compound called coumarin,
which can cause liver damage if consumed in high doses.
Cassia can have 250 times more of it than Ceylon,
but you'd have to eat roughly a teaspoon of cassia a day
for weeks to put yourself at risk.
Countries like Germany have rules
to limit coumarin in foods.
The US doesn't regulate the amount of coumarin in cinnamon.
So how do you spot the difference in the spice aisle?
It's easier when you're buying cinnamon sticks.
Ceylon quills have more of a brown hue.
If they look red,
there's a good chance you're eating cassia.
Cassia sticks are also thicker.
They're usually half an inch and hard to break.
Meanwhile, Ceylon can be as fragile as cigar paper.
Taste can be another giveaway.
Cassia usually has a strong and spicy flavor.
Ceylon is sweeter and milder.
But powdered cinnamon is harder to verify.
Some fraudsters have been caught mixing
powdered cassia with Ceylon
but marketing it as pure Ceylon.
One study found that over half of the products in European
and US grocery stores contained mixed cinnamon.
Narrator: But she says no one in the US or the EU
is stopping this.
In the US,
it's estimated that the FDA only physically inspects
1% to 2% of imported foods like spices.
Narrator: So how is Sri Lanka supposed
to compete in an industry filled with fraud?
In 2022, it scored a major win.
The European Union granted
a coveted geographical indication tag to Ceylon cinnamon.
That means any spice bottle labeled Ceylon in the EU
has to come from Sri Lanka.
It's like how real Champagne
can only come from one region of France.
The tag could reduce competition,
increase Ceylon's value, and boost sales,
but it only goes so far.
In both the EU and US,
brands don't have to add the tag
or indicate what type of cinnamon they're selling,
so it's hard for customers to know what they're eating.
De Silva says adding the botanical or species name
of Ceylon on the ingredients list
will help inform customers.
Narrator: She hopes this will help Sri Lanka's
thousands of producers earn more for their Ceylon.