Tree bark is your new spice

Your spice rack is filled with the ground-up scabs of an evergreen tree.

Cinnamon is not a fruit, a seed, or a leaf, but the inner bark of the *Cinnamomum verum* tree, harvested by peeling away the outer layers until the woody core is exposed.

Farmers begin by shaving off the rough outer bark to reach the valuable inner layer. They then beat the remaining branch with a heavy rod to loosen the delicate inner phloem-the tree's vascular system that transports sugar.

Once this inner layer is slit and pried off in long, wet sheets, it begins to react with the air. As the tissue dries, it curls into the familiar tight scrolls called quills, effectively shrinking into a woody cigar.

If you were to bite into a fresh quill, it would feel more like soft leather than a brittle stick. The heat and spice come from cinnamaldehyde, a potent oily chemical the tree creates to poison any bacteria or fungi that try to eat its wounds.

To harvest the stems, the trees are cut back to the ground in a process called coppicing, which encourages the growth of new, supple shoots. This forces them to grow back in thick, bushy clumps rather than a single tall trunk, a practice that keeps the tree in a perpetual state of regrowth.

High-quality quills are actually composed of dozens of paper-thin layers stuffed inside one another, a manual task that requires the same dexterity as rolling a high-end tobacco leaf.

In the ancient world, people actually believed these sticks were gathered from the nests of giant birds who used them to build sturdy homes in inaccessible canyons.