Ceylon Cinnamon Tree (Canela)

About the Ceylon Cinnamon Tree (Canela)

This is true cinnamon, Cinnamomum verum from Sri Lanka, the soft, delicate, many-layered canela that Mexican kitchens use for café de olla, atole, arroz con leche and champurrado. The spice is the inner bark of young shoots, harvested from trees that are cut back regularly to produce new stems. Even before harvest, the plant is a pleasure: glossy, aromatic, three-veined leaves smell of spice when crushed, and new growth flushes a beautiful pink-red. It grows well in warm, humid regions and can be kept as a shrub or in a large pot. Grown on our farms in Yucatán and Chiapas and shipped via DHL.

How to Care for It

Grow in full sun or light shade in rich, well-drained, slightly acidic soil. Keep it consistently moist and mulch the root zone. Feed with a balanced fertiliser or compost every two to three months in the warm season. Protect from cold below about 2 °C. For bark, cut stems back near the base once established, harvest shoots about thumb-thick, and peel the inner bark while moist.

The backbone of a tropical orchard. Mangoes, Booth 8 avocado, red mamey, chicozapote, carambola, dwarf coconuts, jackfruit and dragon fruit: reliable, productive trees that thrive in Mexico's warm lowlands and coasts, grown on our farms and shipped by DHL.

Growing Profile

Botanical name

Cinnamomum verum

Family

Lauraceae

Native to

Sri Lanka

Mature height

8–15 m

Plant spacing

3 m

Time to first flowers

2–3 years

Light

Full sun

Water

High, keep moist

Cold tolerance

down to 2 °C

Best climates

Humid tropics

Grows in a pot

Yes

Ships from

Our farms in Yucatán & Chiapas