Cinnamon Sticks - Whole Quills

Cinnamon is bark - the inner bark of a small evergreen tree, cut in strips and left to dry, which curls as it dries into the quills you see here. That curling is why cinnamon sticks look the way they do, and the fastest way to tell the two commercial cinnamons apart.

There are two, and almost nobody selling cinnamon explains the difference. Ceylon cinnamon, Cinnamomum verum, comes from Sri Lanka: thin, tan, brittle quills of many fine layers rolled like a cigar, which you can crush between your fingers, and a delicate, sweet, floral flavour. Cassia - the group including Cinnamomum cassia from China and Cinnamomum burmannii from Indonesia - is what most of the world buys and what Egyptian markets sell as erfa. Cassia quills are thick, hard, dark red-brown, rolled from one side into a single tube; you will not crush one by hand, and the flavour is stronger, hotter and much less floral. Ours are cassia-type quills, which is what the dishes below call for.

There is one real difference beyond flavour, and we would rather print it than leave you to find it. Cassia contains coumarin, a naturally occurring compound present only in traces in Ceylon cinnamon. European food-safety authorities have set a tolerable daily intake for it, and the upshot is simple: cassia is entirely fine for normal cooking and for a hot drink, but if you take large amounts of cinnamon daily over long periods, Ceylon is the type to buy instead. Most sellers say nothing about this. We would rather you knew which is in the pouch.

Ceylon is a baker's cinnamon, too delicate for a meat stew or a strong hot drink. Cassia gives erfa its punch and stands up to lamb, tomato and long cooking.

The most Egyptian use is a drink. Erfa is hot cinnamon tea, brewed strong from broken quills, sweetened, and often served with chopped nuts or shredded coconut on top - a winter street drink sold from the sahlab carts and pressed on you the moment it turns cold. It is also the stick simmered into roz bi laban, Egyptian rice pudding. On the savoury side it is a backbone of Egyptian meat cookery: a quill goes into the pot with lamb or beef, into stuffed vegetables and into fatta, and ground cassia is one of the seven in Egyptian baharat.

Egypt's relationship with cinnamon is very old and entirely commercial. Both were among the aromatics Egypt imported in antiquity for embalming and temple incense, arriving by the Red Sea and Arabian trade long before the Mediterranean knew where the trees grew - the Greeks were still repeating fantastical stories about their origin centuries later. Egypt never grew it and always bought it, exactly as with pepper and cardamom.

Buy sticks and break them rather than buying powder. A snapped quill exposes fresh surface and infuses far better than a whole one, while cassia powder loses its top notes within months and a sealed quill holds for years. For erfa, simmer a broken quill or two per cup for ten minutes rather than steeping briefly - bark is dense and needs real time, unlike a leaf or a flower. In a stew the quill goes in whole and comes out before serving.

In Egypt cinnamon is traditionally drunk hot for warmth in the cold months and after a heavy meal, and that is offered here as a description of a long-standing custom, not as a medical claim, and not as a substitute for advice from a doctor or pharmacist.