Ahhh... cinnamon. One of the world's most important spices. So important it's mentioned in the Bible -- both the Old Testament and the New!. Even Pliny the Elder, that Roman historian and philosopher, wrote about it. Once so rare, it was one of the main reasons an Italian set sail under the flags of a Spaniard... not to find the new world, but to find a new route to get cinnamon, and other spices. That person, of course, was Columbus. True cinnamon was so rare and so expensive that in Pliny's time, 350g of it was traded for 5 kilograms worth of silver. This is but a snippet of cinnamon's wide, wild, and surprising history (google it if you want to read more!); Once super rare, today, it's almost as common as the most basic spices, salt and pepper.

So, we all know cinnamon, right? Maybe not. There's a good chance you've never tasted actual cinnamon. You might think you have, but what you tasted instead is Cassia... uh oh. I am getting ahead of myself here.

Much like true arabica coffee is native to only one place on the earth (Ethiopia), true cinnamon is native to only one area: modern day Sri Lanka, née Ceylon. Modern agriculture has transplanted the tree to different countries, like Costa Rica, where you can source "Ceylon Cinnamon" along with other grades of cinnamon (and cassia, but again, more on that below).

True cinnamon is a medicine as well as a spice. A controlled daily dosage of cinnamon can aid those suffering from Type 2 Diabetes by lowering their fasting blood glucose by about 3 to 5%, the same amount that diabetes medicines were doing a few decades ago (modern drugs do more; cinnamon should not be used to replace these drugs, FYI). It also reduces LDL cholesterol and triglycerides.

But what the heck is cinnamon, physically? Well, it's the bark of a tree. Or more specifically, the inner bark of the tree. When being harvested, the tree is chopped down a foot or two above ground, because the tree will grow back (and grow back quickly) from the remaining trunk. While still fresh, the outer green bark is shaved off, and the inner bark is cut away in vertical strips down the trunk. It dries (and curls) very quickly -- usually just 2 weeks in shade, shorter time in sun -- and then it's ready to package and sell. Fresh, taking a tiny bite of the chewy bark is like taking a bite on a dozen BigRed gum sticks! It's a weird sensation too because you're so used to cinnamon being a try powder, or a stick.

True cinnamon, once dried, is a bit more delicate and complex in its taste. What? Cinnamon, delicate? Heck yah, because compared to its close cousin, Cassia, cinnamon is super delicate! Cassia's the big, in your face cinnamon, the BMOC (google that) of spices. And also potentially a lot more bad for you.

So at the top, I said it's possible you've never ever tasted cinnamon, even though you think you have. You probably tasted Cassia. 90% of the stuff sold as "cinnamon" in the US is actually cassia. In the world of coffee, arabica has its close cousin robusta, a hardier, more potent (and not as good tasting) coffee bean; cinnamon has cassia, a hardier, more potent, not as good tasting cinnamon bark. It is native to China and it has something cinnamon does not: coumarin. This chemical forms the basis of the Bristol-Meyer drug, Warfarin. The blood thinning drug they give to people who suffered a pulmonary embolism.

Now Warfarin doesn't have "coumarin". It has "Coumadin", a chemical derived from coumarin. A typical Warfarin dose has 10mg of Coumadin, and a teaspoon of ground up cassia has 10-12mg of coumarin. But I'm getting away from myself here. Coumarin isn't... good for you. Well, it isn't good in high doses. The European Food Safety Authority recommends taking in no more than 7-10mg of coumarin per day (.1mg per kilo of body weight). Too much cassia and all that coumarin will fuck over your liver. Fuck over your kidneys. You will screw with your blood pressure. You will thin your blood. Because, while outside your body it's coumarin (and Warfarin is the metabolized Coumadin made from coumarin), inside your body? Your body will do the same thing to coumarin - metabolize it into its own variant of coumadin!

Basically, I think of Cassia Cinnamon as bad, Ceylon Cinnamon (true cinnamon) as good. I know I'm probably oversensitive to this, and as they say, sometimes a little knowledge is dangerous :) That said, there is no cassia cinnamon in my household. Only ceylon cinnamon in powdered and stick form (and eliquid flavouring form!)

Okay, lots of history, lots of chemistry, lots of science. Let's get down to cinnamon and vaping (or cooking, or flavouring your hot chocolate, why not!) How do you tell cassia apart from cinnamon? If you're buying the sticks, it's pretty easy - cinnamon sticks can be broken by hand; cassia cannot - it's much, much harder. If you're buying powder, read the label - only ceylon cinnamon can be labelled "Ceylon Cinnamon", at least legally. For the rest of this post, I'll be saying "cinnamon" and what I mean is ceylon cinnamon.

I only use one cinnamon in my vaping: FlavourArt's Ceylon Cinnamon. As far as I'm concerned, that's the only cinnamon flavouring you should buy. Again, YMMV. I feel FA's effort is the closest you'll get to real cinnamon. There's little to no sweetness at all, so you'll have to rely on other things in your juice to bring up the balance.

In vaping, you'd use cinnamon almost exactly the way you'd use it in your normal foods. Here's some suggestions:

• Apples, pears, peaches. A match made in heaven with cinnamon. Go for a 4:1 or 5:1 ratio of fruit to cinnamon.
• Chocolates and cinnamon are another match made in heaven. Play with the ratios.
• Creams and Cookies - a third match made in heaven. Don't forget a sweetener!
• Nuts. Any nut will go well with cinnamon, but I find almonds and cinnamon especially play well together, and no surprise - especially if you read my "Tonka Bean" part two post!
• Whiskey, Bourbon, Rum, Brandy, they all love a bit of cinnamon boost.
• used in tiny amounts - less than .5% of a recipe, cinnamon can often give that "hidden pop" of flavour or change other flavours. Try it in things you normally wouldn't to see what happens.
• Cinnamon and Marshmallow pair up super well, the marshmallow mellows out the cinnamon and takes away some of the heat.
• for "Big Red" fans (not my style), just go with 6-10% ceylon cinnamon and some sweet cream and get ready for fire alarm breath!

One final note on cassia vs cinnamon; I didn't do a lot of research into the other companies' cinnamon flavours - it'd be great to know if TPA, FW, etc use cassia or actual ceylon cinnamon. If you know, please share!

So, this post is pretty long, but believe it or not, it was originally much longer! All this talk about cinnamon got me thinking about the "forbidden fruit" (actually a legume) of the culinary world, the Tonka Bean. I'll write that one up next in a much shorter post!