Cassia and Cinnamon, Dalchini, Tuj, Karuvapatta

Spice no. 9

Let me start with Cassia because that is what we use in Indian cuisine. Dalchini which means a branch or twig from China. That is where the first uses of Cassia are seen. Cassia is used as a medicine for respiratory and circulatory and antibacterial effect. The flavour of the aldehydes in Cassia are sharp and pungent. This is the external bark of the Cinnamomum cassia. In the Indian cuisine meat and poultry dishes use Cassia. It is a garam spice so a component of garam masala. It helps make meat better for consumption as it is a blood thinner and lowers cholesterol. 

So since the Cassia belongs to genus Cinnamomum, it is confused with Cinnamon, the sweet spice that makes all baked goodies nice. However the use of sweet Cinnamon is mainly in the West. In India it is never used in sweets. This sweet Cinnamon is grown and harvested only in SriLanka. Those beautiful quills or sticks of Cinnamon perfectly cut into international standards of 4.2 inches long are painstakingly done by Cinnamon harvesters by hand. A horseshoe shaped blade is used to first scrape the hard exo bark and then get to the smooth layers of bark which is hand quilled and dried. Due to this process the Ceylon Cinnamon in much more expensive than the Cassia that Indians are used to. However for all commercial bakeries they use Cassia. Indonesia is also a producer of cassia cultivars.

So there now you know that Dalchini is not Cinnamon.