It was recorded that in the ancient Egypt cinnamon is considered a “gift fit for kings”. This status continued for a over the millennia and even today the “True Cinnamon” is a gift fit for kings.
The reason for this consideration is not only for the natural aroma, the taste and the medicinal properties of cinnamon but also the rarity of the spice that made it so valuable. Best natural cinnamon, with its cousin, “The King of the Spices – Pepper” is grown in the island of Sri Lanka. Cinnamon was traded in the world thousand of years a go. Both cinnamon and pepper was of such value the ancient merchants from the Arab world went to great extent to hide the true source of cinnamon.
At the sale time, Ptolemy that commissioned the first map of the world considered Sri Lanka ( the source of these wonderful spices) as a “Big Country”. This represents the importance of the Sri Lanka and its spices in the antiquity
Even when all other spices are in abundance, cinnamon was the rare commodity that was valued in the ancient Egypt.
This story continued for next several thousand years, Cinnamon was one of the most sort after spices in the ancient world. It was attributed with almost mythical powers. This resulted in consecutive European empires invading the island of Sri Lanka to get access to these majestic spices among many other reasons.
while we believe that almost any person in the world have access to cinnamon, nothing is far from the truth. There is a 92% chance that you purchased the Cassia instead of true cinnamon when you purchased a pack of cinnamon from the super market.
So even today, true cinnamon is a fitting gift for a a king!
