Walk into almost any supermarket outside Sri Lanka and the jar labelled "cinnamon" is, botanically speaking, not cinnamon at all — it's cassia. Global demand is overwhelmingly met by Cinnamomum cassia (Chinese cassia) and related species, while true cinnamon, Cinnamomum verum, is native almost exclusively to Sri Lanka. For importers and food manufacturers, knowing the difference isn't a matter of taste alone — it has real regulatory and liability implications.

Two Different Plants, Two Different Products

Ceylon cinnamon bark is harvested in thin layers and rolled by hand into soft, multi-layered quills — light tan in colour, papery, and easy to crumble between your fingers. Cassia bark is thicker, harder, and rolled as a single curl, ranging from reddish-brown to dark brown. Once ground into powder the visual difference disappears, which is exactly how mislabelling happens further down the supply chain.

The Coumarin Gap

The most consequential difference is coumarin, a naturally occurring compound that is hepatotoxic (harmful to the liver) at high, sustained intake. Cassia cinnamon typically contains 2–7% coumarin, while Ceylon cinnamon contains only around 0.004–0.02% — several hundred times less. European regulators have set a coumarin limit of 2 mg/kg in food and a tolerable daily intake (TDI) of 0.1 mg per kg of body weight. In practical terms, a 60kg adult can reach that TDI from as little as roughly 2 grams of average-coumarin cassia cinnamon a day — a threshold easily crossed by regular bakery, cereal, or supplement consumption. Ceylon cinnamon's coumarin level is low enough that this ceiling is rarely a concern even with daily use.

Why This Matters for Manufacturers

Any food or supplement brand formulating for daily or high-frequency consumption — bakery lines, breakfast cereals, health supplements, functional beverages — carries real reformulation and labelling risk if the cinnamon in the recipe is cassia rather than Ceylon. This is precisely why a growing share of premium and health-focused manufacturers across the EU, UK, and North America are switching their cinnamon sourcing to verified Ceylon origin.

How to Verify What You're Buying

• Ask for a Certificate of Analysis (COA) that confirms species and coumarin content per lot, not just a generic quality statement
• Look for Sri Lankan origin and, ideally, the EU Geographical Indication (GI) status held by Ceylon Cinnamon — the first Sri Lankan product to receive this protection
• Request grade documentation (Alba, C4, C5, quills, chips, or powder) rather than a plain "cinnamon powder" description
• Work with an exporter who tests every lot rather than relying on a single certificate for an entire season

Every shipment we source comes from certified suppliers and ships with a Certificate of Analysis for its own lot, and a coumarin test is available on request at the buyer's cost — because "Ceylon cinnamon" should mean exactly that.