Sri Lankan Baby Cinnamon Tree Royalty-Free Stock Image

Like a child learning the facts of life for the first time, I listened with enraptured disgust at the great manipulation this living thing is exposed to before it becomes useful to us. The cinnamon tree grows up differently from the trees you know. It starts like any other, happy in its natural environment: hot and humid, well-watered, well drained, and with plenty of sun. Its first 3 or 4 years are like any other tree, until one day, a year before it is to be harvested, it is coppiced and discarded. The process is described as “pruning,” but it seemed more like “cutting down” to me. I mean, they cut the whole tree down to the stump and cover it with dirt. It looks dead. We’ll never know what madman first thought to linger for a few months and see whether or not this dead tree comes back to life, but whoever it was would have been delighted to see the little cinnamon shoots popping out of the stump, supple and full of flavor.