Cassia
The thick hard bark that most of the world sells and buys as cinnamon. It is a different species from Ceylon cinnamon, it is stronger and more aggressive, and outside a handful of markets it is what the word 'cinnamon' actually means in a shop.
Identity
- Botanical name
- Cinnamomum aromaticum
- Family
- Lauraceae
- Part used
- Bark
- Origin
- Southern China, Vietnam and Indonesia
- Drunk in
- Guangxi, Vietnam, Sumatra, China
Character
Hot, sweet and bluntly assertive, with more bite and less complexity than Ceylon cinnamon. It stands up to milk and to long simmering, which is why chai uses it.
Notes: cinnamon, clove, wood
History
Chinese cassia has been traded west since antiquity, and the classical and biblical references to cinnamon are generally to this rather than to the Sri Lankan tree. Vietnamese and Indonesian production expanded enormously in the twentieth century and now supplies most of the world market.
How it is drunk
Goes into Chinese braises and five-spice, into Vietnamese pho, and into masala chai across South Asia. In North America it is simply 'cinnamon' and is what is in the sugar shaker.
Production
Bark is stripped from mature trees in thick slabs that curl into hard single-rolled quills, and is much harder than Ceylon bark — it cannot be crumbled by hand. Vietnamese material generally carries the most aroma and commands a premium.
Preparation
Decoction · Steeped with milk · Blended with tea
Boiling and decoction
1–3 g/100 ml · 98–100 °C · 15 min
What gets confused
The single most consequential substitution in the spice trade. Ceylon quills are thin, layered and crumble in the fingers; cassia is a thick single hard curl. Both are sold as cinnamon almost everywhere. On the name: the accepted binomial is Cinnamomum aromaticum, and the Cinnamomum cassia that the whole trade uses is recorded by GRIN as an invalid designation — TeaHQ carried the trade name until it was checked.
Common mistakes
- Assuming a recipe calling for cinnamon means Ceylon. Outside Britain, Mexico and Sri Lanka it usually means this.
Related botanicals
- Cinnamon — The single most consequential substitution in the spice trade. Ceylon quills are thin and layered; cassia is one thick hard curl, and outside a few markets it is what 'cinnamon' means.
Teas this connects to
- Chai blend base — The bark in almost every masala chai. It stands up to milk and long simmering in a way Ceylon cinnamon does not.
Comparisons
- Cassia vs Ceylon cinnamon — Two different species sold under one word, and outside Britain, Mexico and Sri Lanka the word almost always means the cheaper one. The physical difference is obvious once you know to look for it.
- Cassia vs black cardamom — The two assertive spices of a mountain chai, both able to stand up to milk and long simmering, and both wrong in a delicate preparation.
- Star anise vs cassia — The two assertive spices of a Chinese braise and a Vietnamese pho, both able to dominate a pot and both used a fraction at a time.
Guides
Evidence for this page
The botanical name, family and distribution above are checked against an external authority. Cinnamomum aromaticum Nees — GRIN-Global Taxonomy record— retrieved and read, not countersigned by a named human. That source covers naming and distribution only. Everything else on this page — history, culture, production, flavour, preparation and buying advice — is TeaHQ’s own synthesis with no external source behind it.
Brewing parameters here are typical practice for the category rather than measurements of this plant, and each set says so.
This page makes no safety claim. It describes what Cassia is, where it comes from and how it is prepared — not what it does to a person. The absence of a safety note here is not a statement that the plant is safe. How TeaHQ handles this.