- Ah, cinnamon, it seems simple enough, right?

We add it to cakes, pies, cookies.

We swirl it into breads and roll it into buns.

But did you know that cinnamon isn't just one spice but rather an umbrella term for a variety of spices and that the cinnamon that we're familiar with today in America, isn't the same cinnamon that people were enjoying 70 years ago, or even the same cinnamon that was once worth more than gold.

Yes, prepare to have your minds and your taste buds blown away by the world of cinnamon.

(upbeat music) By the way we gonna say cinnamon, a lot in this video, uncomfortably, a lot.

To understand cinnamon, you first have to know what it is and where it comes from.

All cinnamon is harvested from the inner bark of several species cinnamomum trees.

Even though they're over 250 species of this fragrant family of evergreens all over the world.

There are 2 broad types of cinnamon that we eat today with nuanced varieties within them.

Cassia cinnamon which is produced in Southern China and throughout Southeast Asia is what's commonly found in the United States.

Today the most common cinnamon on the American market is Indonesian cinnamon, but this isn't the same cinnamon that your grandma grew up with.

Your grandma likely has fond food memories of indulging in Saigon cinnamon, which is sometimes called Vietnamese cinnamon because spoiler alert that's where it's predominantly exported from.

Those Saigon cinnamon and Indonesian cinnamon are both forms of cassia.

The Saigon version is a lot more flavorful and aromatic than the more subdued Indonesian variety, but why would we ever stop using the tastier variety of cinnamon?

Well, it had nothing to do with flavor profiles and everything to do with war and trade.

In 1964 during the Vietnam war America place to trade embargo on Vietnam, prohibiting all trade including the importation of Saigon cinnamon.

This meant America had to go elsewhere to get her cinnamon fix and Indonesia was an affordable alternative.

Both Saigon cinnamon and Indonesian cinnamon are available on the United States market today but there's a third cinnamon that's beginning to make waves on the American spice market.

And that is ceylon cinnamon from Sri Lanka.

Ceylon cinnamon is what's known as true cinnamon, but don't worry.

The existence of a true cinnamon does not mean that you've been eating bootlegs cinnamon this whole time.

We call it true cinnamon because it's the translation of its Latin name, cinnamomum Verum.

And for thousands of years cinnamomum verum was one of the world's most coveted spices.

According to applying to the elders writings during the first century AD a pound of cinnamon costs about 50 months worth of labor for a commoner.

And at one point in Rome's history cinnamon was more expensive than gold for millennia the origins of true cinnamon were kept a secret from the Western world to throw spice traders off the scent of true cinnamon's true location.

Traders can cope to tales of the cynomolgus, a huge cinnamon bird that would collect the sticks from trees in an unknown land and then build nest in the mountains of Arabia.

Greek historians and philosophers including Aristotle, believed in the existence of cinnamon birds.

This belief held on strong until about 1310, despite the fact that by that point the secret to cinnamon had been revealed.

Once people learned where cinnamon came from it was a race to see who could take control of this precious resource.

And this becomes one of the of the biggest drivers of European colonization.

In 1492, when Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue he wasn't just out to explore the world because he was curious.

And he definitely wasn't trying to proof that the earth was round, mankind had already figured that out over a thousand years prior.

So I have no idea why they taught us in school.

Columbus was on a quest to find another source of the elusive cinnamon and to find other spices of equal and greater value to compete with monopoly that the Persian and Arabian merchants had on that sweet bark of the cinnamon tree.

The first Europeans to colonize Sri Lanka were the Portuguese they gave the Island its colonial name Ceylon, which is how Ceylon cinnamon came to be.

Ceylon cinnamon and the variety of Cassius cinnamons are distinctly different in texture, flavor, color, and price.

So it's relatively easy to spot the differences.

Cassia cinnamon is darker.

It has a thick single layer of bark and they're pretty sturdy sticks.

I mean, they're really really tough to break and grind down.

Ceylon cinnamon on the other hand is a light brown color.

It has a lot of fine layers of barks so it doesn't look like the little roll tube of like paper towels.

And say long cinnamon breaks down a lot easier than Cassius cinnamon in terms of flavor say long cinnamon is milder but it has a lot of depth and it's significantly sweeter than Cassius cinnamon varieties.

It's not as common in the United States so it can be a little bit costly but if you're looking to improve your Apple pie or enjoy a nice cinnamon tea treat yourself to some Ceylon cinnamon, cinnamon cinnamon cinnamon, cinnamon, cinnamon.