Cinnamon - Cultivation and Processing

The true cinnamon, also called Ceylon cinnamon, is the dried bark of Cinnamomum verum species belongs to the family Lauraceae. It is indig enous to Sri Lanka. However, the word cinnamon also denotes hark, of other species of Cinnamomum such as C. Cassia, C. burmanni, C. loureirii etc. The bark of those trees is inferior in quality to the true cinnamon. Cinnamomum verum is an evergreen tree with spirally arranged, broad laminated dark green leaves having palmate venation. The plant grows to aheightof 10-15m with astern, girthof 30 - 50cm under natural conditions. When coppiced from time to time it could be maintained as bush of 2-2. 5m height with multiple stems arising from its base. The flowers are small. Creamy and inconspicuous developing into dark purple ovoid one seeded berries, about 1.5-2.5cm long.



In Sri Lanka, cinnamon seems to have originated in the central hills where several species of cinnamon occur sporadically in places such as Kandy, Matale, Belihull Oya, Haputale and the Sinharaja forest range. Although cinnamonn cultivation is presently concentrated along the coastal belt stretching along from Negombo to Matara, it has also made inroads to the inland of kalutara, Ambalangoda, Matara and Ratnapura,. The extent under cinnamon in Sri Lanka is 15,500ha. Although, the bulk of cinnamon plantations is about70-80years old the sizeof holdings has been diminishing and only about 5-10% of the plantations are of sizeable extent ranging from 8-10ha
Sri Lanka commands about 60% of the world export market, and exports about 7,000 tonnes of quills and chips per year. Large quantities of cinnamon leaf oil and in increasing quantity of bark oil are being exported. Seychelles is the other country which produces sizeable quantities of cinnamon bark.