Steenbergs Organic Cassia Ground

Organic Cassia Ground is reddish-brown and highly perfumed. It has a strong, sweet and lingering aroma, with a flavour that’s mildly bittersweet together with its perfumed, exotic notes.

Steenbergs Organic Cassia Powder is often called, and sold as, cinnamon powder, but it is not the same, so is called in the spice trade ‘bakers’ cinnamon’ or ‘false cinnamon’. Cassia comes from the Asian cinnamon plants, Cinnamomum aromaticum or Cinnamomum cassia, whereas true cinnamon comes from Cinnamomum zeylanicum. Steenbergs organic cassia has a more intense smell and flavour than cinnamon. Cassia has a sweet taste, a strong heady pungency that makes it especially good for baking.

Cassia is used a lot in Chinese and South East Asian cuisine and in curries and pilaffs in India. We, also, use Steenbergs organic cassia in Cape Malay cooking that comes from South Africa.

Axel’s Tasting Notes for Cassia: Sweet – robustly perfumed, sweet and a hint of bitterness.

Don’t overdo using cassia because it can cause health issues.

More about Cassia

Cassia comes from tropical evergreen trees that are related to bay and avocado. Cassia trees grow to 18 metres tall and have stout trunks. The leaves begin as red in colour but mature to deep green. The flowers of cassia are small and light yellow.

Cassia bark is dark reddy-brown and is traded as dark brown slivers or as quills. The quills are similar in general appearance to true cinnamon, but the thickness of the bark is 2 mm whilst cinnamon where the bark is wafer thin.

The aroma and flavour of cassia is highly perfumed, penetrating and sweet, with an agreeable bitterness, which some people prefer over true cinnamon.  My view is that both types of ‘cinnamon’ have their places, so cassia is best for baking and Southeast Asian cooking and cinnamon is better for curries and pilaffs.