Cinnamon

Sri Lanka's cinnamon groves lie exclusively in its western and southwestern regions, north and south of the country's commercial capital, Colombo. The tropical sunshine and abundant rain of these areas provide an ideal habitat, but even here the quality of the spice varies with soil conditions. The sweetest, most prized variety grows in the "silver sand" coastal belt of the Negombo district, just north of Colombo. The immediate environs of Colombo itself once comprised large spice plantations - even today its prime residential quarter is known as Cinnamon Gardens.

A laurel which in its wild state grows up to 20 kilometers high, the cinnamon tree is pruned down hard two years after a seedling is planted out. This produces "tillering" - a profuse, bushy growth of bark-yielding twigs whose five-nerved, shiny, fragrant leaves (like all laurels) sing melodiously in the wind. At blossom time the small, creamy-white flowers attract swarms of birds and bees, which find their spicy fragrance irresistible.

The bark is harvested twice a year, starting when the trees are about three years old, one year after pruning. Cinnamon is always harvested immediately after each of the two rainy seasons, when the rain-soaked bark can be more easily stripped from the trees.

Cinnamon peeling is a highly skilled technique, handed down almost unchanged from ancient times. In Sri Lanka it is still the exclusive occupation of the Salagama caste - a socio-occupational group which follows a trade prescribed by tradition, and quite separate from the growers.

In the first stage of the harvest, the "flush" of tender shoots is cut down and, covered in sacking in the peeling shed, left to ferment lightly. The most difficult part of cinnamon production starts the next day. Seated on the floor of the peeling shed, the peelers snip off the leaves and twigs, and scrape off the rough outer bark from the twigs. The inner bark is then rubbed and beaten down thoroughly with a smooth brass block to break up and homogenize the tissues and free the bark from the twigs. Then the peeler, using the distinctive tool of his trade, a small curved knife called a kokaththa, deftly marks two parallel slits on the stick and eases the bark free in one piece. Experienced peelers do this swiftly and with the precision of a surgeon, making clean and true cuts - all without fragmenting the bark.

Next, the barks are carefully packed in layers, one inside the other, in several plys, telescoped and overlapped end to end to produce long, rolled and layered "quills."

The bark rolls are covered in jute sacking again and left to cure lightly for a day, after which they are air-dried indoors on hammocks for two days. When dried, the bark is curled round into golden-brown quills, which are again dried outdoors in filtered sunlight for one or two days. By this time the cinnamon is dried to a crackling, papery texture and possesses the true cinnamon colour. The bark is then trimmed precisely to the 106.7cm (42-inch) quills specified by the world cinnamon market. A well-made cinnamon quill, or "pipe," is a slim cane of uniform thickness, colour and quality, with edges neatly joined in a straight line end to end and looking like a tight roll of golden-brown multi-ply paper. Quills must be firm, compact and free from "foxing" - trade jargon for reddishbrown warps caused by damp. Quills are packed in 45-kilogram bales and classified into 10 grades according to diameter and the number of 42-inch quills to a pound; permissible amounts of foxing are specified for each grade. Quills are sometimes "buffed" with sulfur for markets with a preference for light-colored bark. Chips, referred to as "quillings" and "featherings," are sold as medium-quality cinnamon for grinding into cinnamon powder, sold on its own or as "pudding spice" in a compound with nutmeg, clove, cardamom, mace and allspice. The chips are also sold for the distillation of oil.

Cinnamon trees have a productive life span of about 40-50 years after which they have to be replanted, for which cinnamon growers receive generous subsidies from Sri Lanka's Department of Minor Export Crops. Well-tended trees free of diseases such as leaf blight and white root yield about 100 kilograms of cured bark per acre.

Cinnamon fetched peak prices in 1989 averaging US$7.50 for a kilogram of the best quality, but fell to US$5 last year. The Gulf War temporarily set back the spice trade, but local exporters believe that cinnamon has a buoyant demand in world markets and will recover quickly. Cinnamon growers sell their cured cinnamon at seasonal cinnamon fairs which serve as the meeting points for producers and their buyers from large exporting firms in Colombo. The leading names here are H.D de Silva and Co, Forbes Walker & Co, John Keells Holdings, Sherman Sons' and the Government-owned exporter, Consolexpo.

Growers journey to the fair with their cinnamon, all processed and baled to the precise requirements of the London and Amsterdam transshipment trade. Each grower's peelers also attend the fair, and according to an age-old practice, their proceeds are divided equally between them. This is a highly effective quality control: the peelers maintain high standards in processing the bark since their share depends as much on the caliber of their work as on the natural quality of the cinnamon.

In early times the cinnamon trade was in the hands of the Arabs, who traded in it with the Greeks and Romans but who kept the source and manner of obtaining it a closely guarded secret. Like the silk route, the spice route too has a rich history and was fraught with many perils - stormy seas, arduous overland journeys, pirates and brigands. From Sri Lanka, cinnamon traveled the western coast of India, through Arabia and Egypt to European markets by way of the great trade gateway, Constantinople. Cinnamon owes its distinctive, spicy fragrance to a volatile oil that it contains. Cinnamon oil is distilled in copper stills from off-grade bark, leaves and roots. The distilleries, always located close to plantations, have a very pleasant effect on the surroundings, scenting the air with a sweet and spicy perfume.

Cinnamon is primarily an edible spice used to enhance and flavor foods. Before the advent of modern food preservation technology, it was, with pepper, the most popular spice for flavoring the salted meat Europeans subsisted on through their long winters. In its native Asian habitats, cinnamon was a much-used spice, along with half a dozen others. However, flavoring food was not cinnamon's only use. In ancient Egypt it was an essential ingredient in embalming the dead, to last for millenniums. In Palestine cinnamon was used for rites of the Tabernacle. And in medieval Europe cinnamon was always added to the incense burnt in churches and was also used in witchcraft.

It was cinnamon which lured explorers such as Vasco da Gama round the storm-tossed Cape of Good Hope in search of a new spice route to the cinnamon lands of the East, when the Ottoman Turks closed Constantinople to trade in 1453. Sailing westwards on the same quest, Columbus made his windfall discovery of America. Cinnamon was the "rich bride Helen" for whom, as one Dutch historian recorded, "the Netherlanders and Portuguese had for so many years contended." It was precious enough to these colonial powers to wage bitter and frequent wars, the very stuff on which their empires were built. Thc Dutch made cinnamon a state monopoly in 1656 in the Dutch-ruled coastal provinces of Sri Lanka; breaches of the Dutch laws relating to cinnamon were even punishable by death. The modern uses of cinnamon continue to be varied. Stick or powdered cinnamon is still a well-loved food flavor, as popular as it was in biblical times. It is the classic flavor for apple pie, Madeira cake and doughnuts, and for a host of yeast pastries and cookies. It is also the mainstay of "sweet pudding spice" which is always added to Christmas pudding. Cinnamon doubles as a savory spice too, and in Sri Lanka is always added to vegetable, fish and meat curries, fancy rice dishes and sweetmeats. Cinnamon oil gives comfort to toothache sufferers wishing to postpone a visit to the dentist. In Mexico cinnamon tea is a popular beverage, and tallow from the cinnamon fruit makes the sweet-scented candles used in Greek Orthodox churches. Cinnamon oil is also much used as a base ingredient in perfumes, dentifrice and soaps, and cinnamon extract is used to flavor chocolates and liqueurs.

Due to its relatively small land coverage compared to other domestic plantation crops, cinnamon in Sri Lanka is classified as a "minor export." Nevertheless, in 1990 Sri Lanka exported 8,233 metric tons of the spice. Sri Lanka also exported large volumes of cinnamon leaf oil and bark oil used for industrial flavoring and medicinal purposes.

World trade in cinnamon is centered round London and the Dutch ports of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, the main transshipment points for its leading buyers being Mexico, the United States, Britain, Germany, Holland, Colombia and Spain.

INFORMATION TAKEN FROM: infolanka.com