Cinnamon collection and preparation in Sri Lanka

From the archive record

A Sri Lankan man cuts out the branches of cinnamon tree. The shoots are stripped of their bark and the peels are set out to dry in the sun. As this happens, the bark naturally curls into quills (sticks). After drying the quills man cuts it into sticks and packaged according to a set of shared qualities. Sri Lanka produces much of the world's Ceylon cinnamon, even though the tree is also commercially grown in Brazil, the Caribbean and India. A great deal of cassia cinnamon comes from Indonesia, although the tree is also grown in Vietnam, China and Burma. When a cinnamon tree is around two years old, cultivators coppice, or cut back, the plant to the size of a stump and cover it with soil. This technique causes it to grow like a bush, with new shoots emerging out of the sides by the followi