If you've ever accidentally bitten into a whole clove and felt a sharp, warm, numbing heat spread across your tongue, you already know why clove oil has been trusted for so many centuries. Even before modern dentistry, people in South and Southeast Asia reached for cloves to relieve an aching tooth, calm an upset stomach, or simply improve the taste of their food. This traditional knowl........

If at any time you open a tinned supply of cinnamon sticks after a few months and find that the smell is missing, then you're by no means alone. Almost everybody who purchases spices in any considerable amount—whether it's a gift box obtained on a trip to Sri Lanka or a large quantity bought for a restaurant kitchen—experiences this. The key to properly storing Ceylon spices lies in the........

Whenever you've taken a cinnamon quill from Sri Lanka and compared it with the flat and thick cassia bark available in most grocery shops, you will already have worked out the reason why people make the effort to import spices from the country. Since genuine Ceylon cinnamon, together with the black pepper, cloves, cardamom and nutmeg that come from the island, is valued at a higher pric........

Nutmeg is found on nearly every spice shelf around the world, yet most people use it only in pinches. That approach is right, and it captures the whole story in a small dose. The health benefits of nutmeg and its safety are two sides of the same coin: in the amounts used in the kitchen, this warm, mildly sweet seed helps with digestion, adds flavour to dishes from curries to eggnog, and........

You'll know what it's like if at any time you've eaten a whole cardamom pod which is concealed in a dish of rice—the effect is sudden, resinous, a bit sweet and a bit sharp. That strong taste goes beyond flavour; among the many health benefits of cardamom people have used for centuries, the ones related to digestion, oral health, and general well-being are the ones tea drinkers, cooks, ........

If you've at any time made the switch from a supermarket pepper tin to genuine Ceylon black pepper and have then wondered why your food now tastes different, the reason lies in a substance called piperine. Genuine Ceylon black pepper contains a considerably higher amount of piperine than most pepper grown in other places, and this one fact is what accounts for the spice having a reputat........

If you've ever taken the time to look for natural methods of supporting normal blood sugar levels, you'll have come across cinnamon more than once. However, not all types of cinnamon are identical even when they have different names, and this difference is important if you're interested in using Ceylon cinnamon for aiding diabetes. The soft, papery quills grown in the southern coastal a........

Anyone who has ever been in a Sri Lankan kitchen will have seen someone break off a piece of cinnamon bark and put it directly into a pot of rice or a cup of tea without using a measuring spoon. Cinnamon used to be both a medicine and a spice before it became a crop grown for export, and that's why it comes as no surprise that 'Ceylon cinnamon for high blood pressure' has become one of ........

If you've ever compared two cinnamon suppliers and noticed the same spice priced very differently, grading is almost always to blame. It's not merely interesting information for people who are particularly keen on spices—instead, it makes the difference between paying a fair price for what you need and either paying too much for a quality you won't use or buying too little for an applic........

If you've always bought cinnamon from the usual supermarket shelf, it's very likely that you've never actually tasted cinnamon at all — not the genuine article, at any rate. The discussion about Ceylon cinnamon and cassia cinnamon isn't merely a minor argument among food enthusiasts. It centres on two different plants, two distinct safety records, and two very different experiences in t........