Cassia
Also known as cassia cinnamon, Chinese cinnamon, Indonesian cinnamon, korintje, Saigon cinnamon, Vietnamese cinnamon
Quick answer
The dried bark of several Cinnamomum species other than C. verum, sold in most of the world simply as "cinnamon". It is stronger, hotter and less delicate than Ceylon cinnamon, and contains substantially more coumarin.
- Tastes of
- strong, sweet-hot, astringent, bold, red-brown
- Heat
- Scoville does not apply
- If you have none
- Cinnamon (Ceylon) — see the limits
Forms
Where the forms of a spice differ enough to need separate answers, they get them. Most spices do not appear here; these do because treating their forms as interchangeable produces a dish that is wrong.
Quills
A single thick hard curl of bark, rolled from one layer — which is the reliable way to tell cassia from Ceylon cinnamon, whose quills are many thin layers rolled together like a cigar.
Assertive, hot and sweet, with far more cinnamaldehyde than Ceylon cinnamon and none of its citrus lift.
Dropped whole into a braise, a stock or a syrup and removed. Cassia is too hard to grind usefully at home.
Not interchangeable with ground
Not interchangeable with Ceylon quills, which are softer, more delicate and will disappear in a long braise. Cassia is the bark for anything cooked hard and long.
Ground cassia
What most jars labelled cinnamon contain in Britain and North America, where the two barks are not legally distinguished.
Hot and sweet and immediately recognisable as the flavour most English speakers mean by cinnamon.
Stirred into batters, sprinkled over. It disperses readily and does not need blooming.
Not interchangeable with stick / quill
A quill cannot be ground at home to the fineness of the commercial product — cassia bark is genuinely hard — so this is one of the few cases where buying ground is a practical decision rather than a compromise.
Other names
What this spice is called elsewhere, and where the translation is not clean.
dalchiniदालचीनी
Hindi
Dalchini in South Asian shops is almost always cassia rather than Ceylon cinnamon, which is why recipes translated from Hindi rarely distinguish the two.
rougui肉桂
Mandarin
kayu manis
Indonesian
Flavour and aroma
Assertive, sweet-hot and slightly astringent, with a bite at the back. This is the flavour most people in Britain and North America mean when they say "cinnamon".
Strong, sweet and direct, with a spicy, almost hot edge and none of the citrus-floral complexity of Ceylon cinnamon.
Deep red-brown to dark brown bark; the ground spice is a noticeably darker, redder brown than ground Ceylon cinnamon.
Hard, thick, single-layer scrolls that resist breaking and are difficult to grind in a domestic grinder.
Heat
Pungency scale: none — this spice is not pungent
No capsaicin heat, but a genuine astringent bite that is often described as hot.
The "hot" quality of cassia is astringency and aromatic intensity, not chilli-type heat.
- Cinnamaldehyde — Present at a higher proportion than in Ceylon cinnamon, giving the greater intensity.(what cinnamaldehyde is)
- Coumarin — Present at substantially higher levels than in Ceylon cinnamon. Contributes a sweet hay-like note and is the basis of the intake guidance below.(what coumarin is)
Coumarin content varies widely between species and batches, so a single figure would be misleading; the meaningful statement is the consistent direction of difference against Ceylon cinnamon.
Pairings
Ranked by how well established the combination is, with the reason and the caveats attached.
Foods
Apple
ClassicOne of the most established sweet pairings in Western baking. Apple's acidity and cassia's assertive sweet-hot character balance, and cassia specifically — rather than Ceylon cinnamon — is what most people expect to taste.
Pork
ClassicThe backbone of Chinese red-braised pork and char siu, where cassia's assertive sweet-hot character stands up to long braising in soy and sugar. Ceylon cinnamon is too delicate for this job and will disappear.
How: Whole scroll in a red-braising liquid; In a five-spice rub for roast pork belly
Add alongside: Star anise, Sichuan pepper, Chinese five spice
- Easily overdone in a braise — one scroll is usually enough for a large pot.
Banana
ClassicFor the ripe fruit, and it is the pairing every fried-banana tradition arrives at from Southeast Asia to the Caribbean. Ripe banana is dominated by isoamyl acetate, an ester distinctive enough to be what artificial banana flavouring is made of, and cassia is one of few spices assertive enough to sit alongside it.
How: On fried banana; In banana bread
Orange
ClassicMulled wine, poached fruit, Middle Eastern desserts and Christmas baking all reach for it. Orange is sharply aromatic and cassia is warm and slightly sweet, and the pair is old enough in European cooking to read as a season rather than a flavour.
Add alongside: Cloves, Star anise, Green cardamom
Black tea
ClassicMasala chai is built on it. Tea tannins are astringent and cassia is warm and faintly sweet, so the two balance without either being lost — and cassia holds up to being boiled with milk, which more delicate spices do not.
Add alongside: Ginger, Green cardamom, Cloves
Duck
StrongThe warm sweet backbone of Chinese braised duck, and the reason duck takes to fruit so well — cassia bridges the meat and the orange or plum it is so often cooked with. Ceylon cinnamon is too delicate for a braise this long and disappears.
How: In a red-braising liquid; With orange in a French-style duck
Add alongside: Star anise, Orange, Cloves
Sweet potato
StrongThe sweet direction, and it is a legitimate one rather than merely an American habit — sweet potato with warm baking spice is a genuine tradition and it is the same logic as pumpkin pie. The risk is that it doubles down on sweetness, so it wants salt or a sharp element alongside.
How: In a sweet potato casserole or pie; With butter and warm spice as a side
Add alongside: Nutmeg, Ginger, Pumpkin spice
Coffee
StrongWidespread from Turkey through the Levant to Mexico, where cassia is boiled with the grounds rather than added after. It softens the bitterness without sweetening, which is a different effect from adding sugar.
Add alongside: Green cardamom, Cloves, Nutmeg
Honey
StrongA pairing that runs from Greek and Levantine pastry through to spiced honey for cheese. Honey is floral and one-dimensionally sweet; cassia gives it a warm edge and makes it read as less cloying without reducing the sugar.
Add alongside: Cloves, Orange, Green cardamom
Cherry
GoodThe sour cherry's savoury partner, and one that spans Persia, Turkey and the Balkans. Cassia with sour cherry and lamb is a combination that reads strange in English-speaking cooking and is entirely ordinary from Isfahan to Sarajevo.
How: In albaloo polow; With lamb
Plum
GoodThe sweet treatment, and cassia rather than Ceylon cinnamon because it holds up to long cooking with sugar. A plum crumble or compote seasoned with Ceylon cinnamon tastes noticeably fainter.
How: In a compote or crumble
Other spices and blends
Star anise
ClassicThe core of Chinese five spice and of red-braising. Both are assertive and sweet-aromatic, and both survive long cooking, which is why they define braises rather than being lost in them.
Add alongside: Sichuan pepper, Fennel seed, Ginger
Tsaoko
ClassicThe other half of the pho and red-braise spice set. Cassia is nearly all cinnamaldehyde and reads as sweet and forceful; tsaoko is smoke and camphor. The pair covers the sweet and the savoury ends of a long-simmered broth, which is why almost every version of both dishes contains both.
How: Together in pho broth; In red-braising liquid and master stocks
Add alongside: Star anise, Dried orange peel, Cloves
Shares a blend
Spices that appear alongside cassia in the core of a governed blend. That is a record of established use rather than a recommendation, and it carries no proportions.
Together in Berbere, Chai masala, Chinese five spice, Mixed spice, Pumpkin spice, Quatre-épices, Mulling spice, Gingerbread spice.
Together in Apple pie spice, Berbere, Chai masala, Mixed spice, Pumpkin spice, Quatre-épices, Mulling spice, Gingerbread spice.
Together in Apple pie spice, Chai masala, Mixed spice, Pumpkin spice, Quatre-épices, Mulling spice, Gingerbread spice.
Together in Apple pie spice, Berbere, Mixed spice, Pumpkin spice, Mulling spice, Gingerbread spice.
Together in Apple pie spice, Berbere, Chai masala, Mulling spice, Gingerbread spice.
Together in Chai masala, Quatre-épices, Gingerbread spice.
Together in Berbere, Mixed spice, Gingerbread spice.
Together in Chai masala, Chinese five spice.
Together in Mixed spice, Gingerbread spice.
Together in Berbere.
Together in Gingerbread spice.
Together in Berbere.
Together in Berbere.
Together in Berbere.
Together in Berbere.
Together in Berbere.
Together in Berbere.
Together in Mulling spice.
Together in Berbere.
Together in Chinese five spice.
If you have no cassia
What to use instead, and — more usefully — where each replacement stops working.
Cinnamon (Ceylon)
AcceptableUse: 1.25–1.5× by volume — Use rather more Ceylon cinnamon than the cassia called for, to compensate for its lower intensity.
Gentler, more complex and less assertive. In a dish designed around a strong cinnamon hit, the result will read as underpowered even at the higher quantity.
| Flavour | Aroma | Colour | Heat |
|---|---|---|---|
| close | close | close | n/a |
Works for
- Delicate desserts
- Anywhere reducing coumarin intake matters
- Dishes where cinnamon is a supporting note
Does not work for
- Cinnamon rolls and similar bakes built around an assertive cinnamon flavour
- Long braises, where the delicate notes are cooked off anyway and the money is wasted
Allspice
AcceptableUse: ~0.5× by volume — About half, because allspice is broader and brings clove and nutmeg character with it.
Keeps the dish warm and sweet-spiced but moves it away from cinnamon towards something closer to mixed spice. In baking that is usually acceptable; in a dish where cinnamon is the identifying note it is not.
| Flavour | Aroma | Colour | Heat |
|---|---|---|---|
| partial | partial | close | similar |
Works for
- Fruit puddings, crumbles and mulled drinks
- Caribbean and Middle Eastern savoury cooking
Does not work for
- Cinnamon buns, snickerdoodles and anything where the name says cinnamon
- Mexican and Levantine dishes built on cassia specifically
Commonly confused with cassia
Direct comparisons, each with the difference that actually changes what you cook.
Preparation and use
Use sticks whole for infusion and retrieve them; buy ground for baking rather than attempting to grind the bark at home.
Cassia is the right choice wherever cinnamon needs to be the point: sweet baking, spiced biscuits, mulled drinks, and savoury braises in Chinese and Southeast Asian cooking. In delicate custards or poached fruit it can bully everything else off the plate, and Ceylon cinnamon serves better.
- grinding — Hard cassia bark is difficult to grind domestically and can damage a light spice grinder. Most cooks buy it ready-ground for this reason.
- baking — Holds its character well through baking, which is why it dominates in sweet baking where Ceylon cinnamon would be lost.
- boiling — Whole scrolls infuse steadily in braises and stocks and are easy to retrieve.
Convert cassia between spoons and grams (a level teaspoon of ground cassia is about 2.6 ± 0.39 g)
Appears in: Apple pie spice, Berbere, Chai masala, Chinese five spice, Mixed spice, Pumpkin spice, Quatre-épices, Mulling spice, Gingerbread spice
Storage and freshness
| Form | Good for | Conditions | Fridge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stick / quill | 24–48 months (typically 36 months) | Cool, dark, dry, closed. | No |
| Ground | 6–24 months (typically 12 months) | Cool, dark, dry, closed. | No |
Smell a fresh break in the bark, or rub the ground spice warm in the palm. Cassia should be immediately and obviously sweet-spicy; if it is merely brown-smelling, replace it.
- Weak aroma at a fresh break
- Flat, dusty taste
- Caking
- Volatilisation of cinnamaldehyde from the ground spice
- Oxidation of the volatile fraction on air exposure
- Light-driven breakdown of the aroma compounds
- Moisture uptake and caking
Quality is not the same as safety
Stale cassia is a quality problem, not a safety one. The genuine health consideration for cassia is coumarin intake at high habitual consumption, which is unrelated to age or storage.
Buying and quality
Ground is the sensible default here, which is the opposite of the advice for most spices. Cassia bark is genuinely hard to grind at home and can damage a domestic grinder, and its aroma is robust enough that pre-ground cassia remains usable far longer than pre-ground cumin. Keep sticks for infusing braises and stocks.
- A single thick, hard scroll of dark red-brown bark, rather than the layered papery quill of Ceylon cinnamon.
- Strong, immediate sweet-spicy aroma.
- A named origin — Vietnamese/Saigon, Indonesian/korintje, Chinese — since these differ appreciably in intensity.
Commercial grading turns on origin species, volatile oil content and cleanliness rather than on a consumer-facing scheme.
Botany
Cassia is a trade category covering several species rather than a single plant: Chinese cassia, Indonesian korintje and Vietnamese/Saigon cassia are all sold under the name.
Lauraceae
Thicker bark than Ceylon cinnamon, and not restricted to the thin inner layer.
Evergreen trees of the laurel family native to southern China, mainland Southeast Asia and Indonesia depending on species.
Commonly confused with
The reverse of the confusion recorded on the cinnamon profile. If a pack simply says "cinnamon" and the bark is a single thick hard scroll of dark red-brown, it is almost certainly cassia.
Where it comes from and how it is made
Southern China and mainland Southeast Asia, with Indonesian species native to the archipelago.
- Indonesia — major producer. The largest source of cassia in world trade, chiefly korintje.
- China (Guangxi and Guangdong) — origin
- Vietnam — major producer. Saigon cassia, generally the highest in volatile oil and the most assertive.
Bark is stripped in sections and dried, curling into thick single-layer scrolls.
- Bark stripping — Bark is cut and prised from trunk and branches in broad sections.
- Drying — Sections dry and curl into thick, hard, single-layer scrolls.Why: Produces the characteristic cassia quill, structurally quite different from a compound Ceylon quill.
- Cutting and grading — Dried bark is cut to length and graded on thickness, appearance and volatile oil content.
Graded chiefly on species/origin, volatile oil content and cleanliness. Vietnamese material typically tests highest for volatile oil.
The principal integrity issue runs the other way from most spices: cassia is not usually adulterated so much as it is sold under a name — "cinnamon" — that consumers reasonably take to mean a different species. In many jurisdictions this is entirely lawful.
Grown as trees and harvested by stripping bark from trunks and branches, typically after several years of growth rather than on the short coppice cycle used for Ceylon cinnamon.
Warm, humid subtropical to tropical conditions.
History and trade
Cassia has been traded from China and Southeast Asia since antiquity and appears alongside cinnamon in classical sources, though which botanical species those sources meant is not securely established. In the modern era it has become the dominant commercial "cinnamon" by volume in most Western markets.
Cassia now accounts for the large majority of bark sold as cinnamon worldwide, driven by lower production cost and a flavour profile better suited to industrial baking.
Claims we do not accept at face value
“Classical "cassia" and classical "cinnamon" correspond to the modern species of those names.”
contested
Ancient authors clearly distinguished two commodities, but the botanical identification of each is unresolved. SpiceHQ records the distinction as attested and the identification as open.
Culture
Recorded by tradition rather than merged into one narrative — these are genuinely different practices.
China
Cassia bark (rou gui) is a savoury spice, one of the constituents of five-spice powder and a standard component of red-braised dishes and master stocks.
- Component of five-spice powder
- Red braising and master stock
North America and Britain
Cassia is the default cinnamon of sweet baking — cinnamon rolls, apple pies, spiced biscuits — and is what the word "cinnamon" denotes in ordinary use.
Rou gui has a long-established role in traditional Chinese medicine. Recorded as tradition, not as a health claim.
What it is called
- Mandarin: 肉桂 (ròu guì)
- Indonesian: kayu manis
- Vietnamese: quế
Health evidence
What the clinical literature actually shows, with the evidence level and the exposure it was studied at stated before the finding. SpiceHQ reports evidence; it does not give health advice and records no doses.
Almost every clinical trial described as studying "cinnamon" has used cassia, so the evidence summarised on the cinnamon profile belongs here at least as much. Cassia also carries the one health question in this pair that is specific rather than shared: it is a significant dietary source of coumarin, and prolonged heavy use is a recognised concern for the liver in susceptible people.
- Preliminary evidenceLiver
Is cassia cinnamon bad for your liver?
Human trials exist and are too few, too small or too inconsistent to conclude from.
Cassia contains coumarin, which the European Food Safety Authority assessed and gave a tolerable daily intake. Interactions between coumarin and the liver have been reported, and the NIH position is that ordinary consumption of cassia does not usually involve enough coumarin to cause problems — but that some cassia products contain high levels, and that prolonged use could be an issue for sensitive people such as those with liver disease. Coumarin content varies widely between batches and origins, which is why no useful general figure exists for a jar on a shelf.
- What was studied:
- Culinary amounts, Medicinal preparation
- Relevance to cooking:
- Partly applies to eating the spice
This is one of the few findings on SpiceHQ that does concern eating the spice, because coumarin exposure scales with how much cassia is eaten and some people eat a great deal of it daily. It is a question about sustained heavy use rather than about a cinnamon bun.
Sources: Cinnamon: Usefulness and Safety; Coumarin in flavourings and other food ingr… - Insufficient evidenceBlood glucose
Does cassia cinnamon lower blood sugar?
It has been studied in people and the results do not agree.
The trials that produced the "cinnamon lowers blood sugar" claim mostly used cassia, and a Cochrane review of them found insufficient evidence to support cinnamon for type 1 or type 2 diabetes. Later trials have continued to disagree with each other. The species question that matters elsewhere on this page does not rescue the finding: cassia is the one that was tested, and testing it did not settle it.
- What was studied:
- Medicinal preparation, Concentrated extract
- Relevance to cooking:
- Does not apply to eating the spice
Capsule quantities well above culinary use. Adding cassia to food has not been tested for this.
Sources: Cinnamon: Usefulness and Safety
Claims SpiceHQ does not make
Recorded rather than omitted. A page that says nothing about the question you arrived with has not spared you an answer; it has sent you to find a worse one.
Switching to Ceylon cinnamon removes a health risk you were running.
Ceylon cinnamon does contain far less coumarin, and that is a real difference. But it is a reason to prefer Ceylon if you eat cinnamon heavily every day, not evidence that ordinary cassia use has harmed anyone. Selling the switch as a rescue overstates a risk that the regulators themselves describe as a question of sustained high intake.
Safety
Safety statements on SpiceHQ must cite evidence — they cannot be published on editorial judgement.
Concentrated cassia oil and cats
Applies to: Distilled cassia essential oil — in diffusers, cleaning products, topical preparations and "natural" pest treatments — rather than the dried spice used in cooking.
Cassia bark oil is cinnamaldehyde-dominant and falls under the same veterinary concern as cinnamon oil: concentrated essential oils are documented as causing toxicosis in companion animals, and cats are disproportionately affected because the glucuronide pathway that clears phenolic compounds is limited in the species. This is a statement about the distilled oil and not about cassia sticks or ground cassia used in cooking.
Coumarin intake at high habitual consumption
Applies to: People consuming cinnamon daily in substantial quantities, including supplement users
Cassia is a significant dietary source of coumarin, for which the European Food Safety Authority has set a tolerable daily intake of 0.1 mg per kg of body weight. Occasional culinary use is not the concern; the relevant case is someone taking cassia daily in substantial quantity, for example by the spoonful as a supplement. For habitual heavy use, Ceylon cinnamon is the materially lower-coumarin choice. This is a statement of established intake guidance and is not medical advice.
Not among the substances that must be declared as allergens under EU Regulation 1169/2011 Annex II or under the United States major food allergen rules. That is a statement about labelling law and not about whether allergy occurs: allergic reactions to spices are documented in the clinical literature and are simply not a labelling category. Where a ground spice presents an allergen risk it is usually through adulteration or shared processing equipment rather than through the plant itself.
What we do not know
Published openly. A gap we have named is more useful than a gap we have filled with plausible prose.
Fields we have not established for cassia:
- Propagation
- Archaeological evidence
- Historical timeline
- Ceremonial use
Questions this page answers
- is cassia cinnamon bad for you
- cinnamon coumarin
- how much cinnamon is too much
- is ceylon cinnamon safer
- cinnamon liver damage