Sri Lanka cinnamon harvest

Spices for Sri Lanka cinnamon harvest

Cinnamon is harvested when the bushes are about two years old and the bark peels easily after the rains. Peelers cut the stems, scrape off the outer bark and rub the stem with a brass rod to loosen the thin inner bark, which is then stripped and rolled by hand into long quills, nesting finer pieces inside coarser ones. They are dried in shade and cut into sticks. This is the labour that gave the island the name Ceylon cinnamon and its hold on the global trade for centuries; the peelers of the south, around Galle and Matara, are traditionally a hereditary caste.

The spices

CinnamonTrue cinnamon, the thin, sweet inner bark.