Cassia / Cinnamomum cassia (botanical type)

Peppery, warm, spicy flavour; higher coumarin (0.5-1.0%), requiring careful dosing for long-term health use. Thicker bark, lower oil content, commercial resilience. Wider elevation and climate tolerance than true cinnamon. Lower global market price (~25% of true cinnamon).

Key facts

Figures are indicative, compiled from public agricultural sources (ICAR institutes, State Agricultural Universities, the Spices Board and the National Innovation Foundation) and vary with soil, season and management. Confirm with your local package of practices.

Cassia / Cinnamomum cassia (botanical type) in detail

Chinese cassia grows well in warm conditions across southern China and Southeast Asia, giving thicker bark with a peppery heat and commercial resilience at lower cost than true cinnamon—but its higher coumarin content means it needs careful handling in food and supplement use.

Origin & story

Cinnamomum cassia originates in the southern Chinese provinces of Guangxi, Guangdong, and Yunnan, where it has long been cultivated, and it is now widely grown across South and Southeast Asia. In India it has been taken up mainly through trial and adaptation work, with ICAR-IISR running trial programmes and plantings explored in parts of Himachal Pradesh and Assam.

How it grows

Cassia is a warm-climate tree that tolerates a wider range of elevations and conditions than true cinnamon, which is part of why it has spread so widely. Bark thickness and volatile oil tend to build up as the tree ages. Mature trees (around four years and older) yield thick, single-layer bark that rolls into hard, rough quills—unlike the fine, multi-layered quills of Ceylon cinnamon. Harvesting generally favours the wetter season, as drier-season bark can adhere and give lower yields.

Quality & character

Bark is dark reddish-brown, coarse, and thick (2–4 mm, with a processing recovery of about 20–30%). It rolls poorly into quills and is mostly sold as chips or powder for commercial use. The flavour is warm, peppery, and spicy—less subtle than Ceylon cinnamon. Volatile oil content runs about 0.5–2.0%, with cinnamaldehyde typically 15–30% of the dry bark, lower than in true cinnamon. Coumarin is markedly higher than in true cinnamon, around 0.5–1.0%, with large variation between batches and even within a single tree.

Why it matters to buyers

Cassia trades at roughly a quarter of the price of true cinnamon, which is why it dominates lower-grade culinary, beverage, and flavouring markets where warmth and spice matter more than subtlety. The higher coumarin content makes transparent labelling important for buyers using it heavily or in supplements. Germany's BfR has set a tolerable daily intake of 0.1 mg coumarin per kg body weight, which for a 60 kg adult is reached at about 2 g of average cassia per day—so moderation is the standard guidance for regular consumption. FSSAI and the Spices Board publish quality standards for cassia, and export lots are commonly tested for volatile oil, moisture, and aflatoxins.

Other cinnamon varieties

• Navashree (C. verum)
• Nithyashree (C. verum)
• YCD-1 (Yercaud cinnamon)
• PPI(C)1 (Pechiparai cinnamon)
• Konkan Tej
• Sugandhini (ODC-130, C. verum)
• True Cinnamon / Cinnamomum verum (botanical type)
• Cinnamomum burmannii (Indonesian/Korintje cassia)
• Cinnamomum loureiroi (Saigon cinnamon, Vietnamese cinnamon)