Holiday Calendar

National Cinnamon Day

Next celebratedSunday, November 1, 2026

Cinnamon does a lot of quiet work in a kitchen, and National Cinnamon Day is the nudge to notice it. Drop a whole stick into something simmering and let it give up its flavor slowly.

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Last updated September 7, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATENovember 1
OBSERVED INUnited States
CATEGORYFood
SUBCATEGORYBaking
ORIGIN

Corporate Initiative

FOUNDING ENTITY
McCormick & Company, Incorporated
FIRST OBSERVED
2019
“A spice rack regular, handed a date at the front of the holiday season.
HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

A spice company gave its best-selling winter spice a day.

McCormick & Company announced the first National Cinnamon Day from Hunt Valley, Maryland on 30 October 2019, declaring 1 November as the opening of a campaign it called CinnamonSeason. The company commissioned a limited-edition cinnamon bake for the day and ran a public search for people who share the spice's name.

Read McCormick's announcementvia via McCormick & Company
INTRO

What is actually inside a cinnamon stick

National Cinnamon Day arrives with an assumption folded into it, which is that cinnamon is one thing. It is not. The bark sold under that name comes from more than one tree, and the difference is written into European food law.

Start with the stick. The specification the European Union registered for Ceylon cinnamon does not describe a single curl of bark at all. It describes scraped peels of inner bark, curled and joined together by overlaps, the hollow packed with small pieces of peeled cinnamon, and the whole quill built up to a standard length of around 1,050 millimeters.

Cassia, the other bark sold as cinnamon, behaves differently. Germany's federal risk institute describes its stick as one relatively thick outer layer rolled up on itself, against a Ceylon quill whose cross-section looks like a cut cigar.

One word, then, covering two barks with different structures, different chemistry and different prices. The cinnamon roll has its own day on October 4. This one is about the bark.

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ORIGINS

Cinnamon Day history

INTRODUCTION

For centuries the people who turned cinnamon bark into a saleable spice were a caste apart. Sir Alexander Johnston, appointed chief justice of Ceylon in 1809, told the Royal Asiatic Society that the Chalias held their land on a single condition: to peel and prepare as much cinnamon as the government required, and to do it without pay.

By his account the kings of Kandy exacted that duty first. The Portuguese, the Dutch and the British each inherited the arrangement in turn, and each kept it.

CHAPTER 01

A bush you could not cut on your own land

The Dutch made every cinnamon bush on the island government property, whoever owned the ground it stood on. A first offense drew fines of 50 and 100 dollars. A second cost the offender his property.

Cultivation was resisted from inside the trade. When the Dutch governor Falk began raising cinnamon in his own garden near the Mutwall River, the peelers objected and insisted the spice would deteriorate if it were farmed. His bushes came out larger and better than any grown wild.

CHAPTER 02

The bark that undercut it

Those enactments outlived Dutch rule. John Capper, writing for the same society in 1845, recorded that not until 1833 was anyone but the government allowed to cut a single stick of cinnamon on their own property.

By the time the trade opened, the market was leaving. Capper reported that buyers had begun to find Ceylon cinnamon too dear and had switched to a product that cost a fraction as much. Cassia rose quickly into demand, and the two barks have been sold under one word ever since.

CHAPTER 03

A name worth arguing over

That confusion eventually reached a regulator. Sri Lanka applied to protect the name Ceylon cinnamon across the European Union, and Germany filed a formal objection, arguing the phrase was really a plant name and had to stay free for anyone to use.

Talks between the two governments ended on 28 December 2020 without agreement. The Commission decided it alone, registered the name, and set a condition: a producer outside Sri Lanka using the botanical synonym must print its country of origin in the same field of vision, in letters no smaller than the name itself.

CHAPTER 04

The day itself

None of that is why the day exists. McCormick, which calls cinnamon its most sold holiday spice at that time of year, declared 1 November National Cinnamon Day in 2019 and built the launch around a one-day bake at a New York pastry shop. It is a commercial invention, and a reasonable prompt to ask which of the two barks is in your own cupboard.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Cinnamon Day

HEALTH

The ceiling sits on the bun, not on the cinnamon.

European rules cap coumarin in finished foods, at 50 milligrams per kilogram for traditional and seasonal bakery ware whose label mentions cinnamon. Germany's federal risk institute states plainly that no limit value exists for coumarin in cinnamon sold as a spice, which is why the species matters and not only the quantity.

KITCHEN

Ground cinnamon gives a buyer nothing to go on

Once the bark is powdered, Germany's risk institute says consumers can hardly tell Ceylon cinnamon and cassia apart. The printed name on the packet becomes the only thing separating them.

LIVELIHOODS

A naming rule is also an export rule

Sri Lanka supplies 85 percent of the global market for Ceylon cinnamon, on UNIDO's account. More than 70,000 smallholder growers depend on the crop, so a decision about a word carries into a national export.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Linnaeus names the tree

Species Plantarum carries the tree as Laurus cinnamomum. Kew still lists that Linnaean name among the synonyms of today's accepted name, Cinnamomum verum.

The peelers' banner reaches the Society

Sir Alexander Johnston presents the Royal Asiatic Society with a facsimile of an old Chalia banner on 17 November, alongside his account of the cinnamon-peeling caste.

The Ceylon monopoly breaks

The colonial government is instructed to sell its cinnamon gardens and its stock of 11,000 bales. Private landowners may cut cinnamon on their own ground for the first time.

Buyers switch to a cheaper bark

John Capper reads a paper to the Royal Asiatic Society on 1 February reporting that buyers had found true cinnamon too costly and had moved to a far cheaper substitute.

The day is declared

McCormick announces the first National Cinnamon Day for 1 November, opening a campaign built around the spice and a limited-edition bake in New York.

The name becomes protected

The European Commission registers Ceylon cinnamon as a protected geographical indication on 2 February, after a formal objection from Germany that could not be settled by talks.

AT A GLANCE

Ceylon cinnamon at a glance

Accepted botanical name
Cinnamomum verum J.Presl
Family
Lauraceae
Native range
Sri Lanka
Part used
Scraped inner bark
Coumarin content
Less than 0.004%
Cinnamaldehyde in quill oil
50% to 70%
Growing altitude
10 m to 700 m

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about National Cinnamon Day

The spice exemption skips coumarin

The EU annex that sets these coumarin ceilings lifts them for a food flavored with nothing but fresh, dried or frozen herbs and spices. That derogation is marked against exactly three substances: estragole, methyleugenol and safrole. Coumarin carries no such mark, so a bake flavored only with real cinnamon still counts against its limit.

The peeler's judgment is written into EU law

The registered specification calls them skilled peelers, or cinnamon technicians, and states that it is the peeler who decides the perfect moment to harvest. It goes as far as naming two of their tools, the keththa and the sooruna koketha.

The plant name in the objection is not in the register

Germany's case rested on the botanical name Cinnamomum ceylanicum. Kew's International Plant Names Index, the register of published plant names, carries no entry under that spelling. It lists four under Cinnamomum zeylanicum, and the accepted name for the tree is Cinnamomum verum.

America's coumarin rule is about a different plant

US regulations deem a food adulterated if coumarin has been added to it, whether on its own or by way of tonka beans or tonka extract. The section rests on an order from 1954 and does not mention cinnamon at all.

Cassia carries coumarin by the gram

Food monitoring puts the average cassia cinnamon at roughly 3,000 milligrams of coumarin per kilogram, with the highest measured samples reaching 10,000. Germany's risk institute sets a tolerable daily intake of 0.1 milligrams per kilogram of bodyweight. A 60 kilogram adult reaches it at about two grams of cassia.

As our most sold holiday spice this time of year, we wanted to give cinnamon the attention it deserves, as well as honor people with this unique name.
Jill PrattVP of North America Marketing Excellence, McCormick & Company

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Cinnamon Day

EDITOR'S PICK

Look at the end of a cinnamon stick

Hold one up and study the cross-section. Several fine layers rolled together like a cut cigar means Ceylon; one thick layer curled into a single roll means cassia.

BUY

Buy a jar that names its species

Plenty of packets say only cinnamon, which settles nothing. Look for one that states Ceylon cinnamon, or gives a botanical name, and keep it for the things you eat most often.

SIMMER

Simmer a stick instead of stirring in powder

Drop a whole quill into milk, cider or a pot of rice as it cooks. The oil comes out slowly and the stick can be fished back out at the end.

BAKE

Bake something the spice can carry

Cinnamon does its best work where it is not competing with much else. Pick a plain dough or a soft fruit and let the bark set the flavor.

READ

Read the rulebook behind the name

The European specification for Ceylon cinnamon is public and unexpectedly concrete. It sets out how a quill is built, how long it should be and where on the island it may be grown.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Cinnamon Day?

1 / 8

How is a Ceylon cinnamon quill actually put together?

Answer

No. It is an unofficial observance and carries no federal designation in the Federal Register, so it is a normal working day.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

13sources
11primary records
7independently dated
Primary records
McCormick & Company2019-10-30
Cinnamon-Lovers Everywhere Have Reason to Celebrate as First-Ever National Cinnamon Day is Declared for November 1st
The company's own announcement declaring the first National Cinnamon Day.
View source
Publications Office of the European Union2022-02-03
Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/144 registering Ceylon cinnamon (PGI)
The registration, Germany's objection to it, and the labelling condition that settled it.
View source
Publications Office of the European Union2020-06-22
Publication of an application for registration of a name: Ceylon Cinnamon (PGI)
The product specification, including how a quill is built and where the tree may grow.
View source
Publications Office of the European Union2008
Regulation (EC) No 1334/2008 on flavourings, Annex III
Maximum coumarin levels in named foods, and the derogation that covers three other substances.
View source
German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment
FAQ on coumarin in cinnamon and other foods
Why the spice itself has no coumarin limit, and how to tell the two barks apart.
View source
Office of the Federal Register2026-09-03
21 CFR 189.130, Coumarin
The US rule on added coumarin and tonka beans, resting on a 1954 order.
View source
Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland1845
The Cinnamon Trade of Ceylon, its Progress and Present State
John Capper's 1845 account of the monopoly, its 1833 opening and cassia's rise.
View source
Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland1827
Account of a Flag Representing the Introduction of the Caste of Chalias or Cinnamon-Peelers, into Ceylon
Ceylon's former chief justice on the peeling caste and the unpaid duty exacted from it.
View source
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Cinnamomum verum J.Presl, Plants of the World Online
The accepted name for true cinnamon, its native range and its synonyms.
View source
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
International Plant Names Index
Kew's register of published plant names, searchable by spelling.
View source
Office of the Federal Register
Federal Register document search
The federal index of proclamations and rules, searchable by phrase.
View source
Additional coverage
UN Industrial Development Organization
Reinvigorating Sri Lanka's Ceylon cinnamon exports
Sri Lanka's share of the Ceylon cinnamon market and the growers who depend on it.
View source
Turistradet Vastsverige
Cinnamon Bun Day
Sweden's October 4 cinnamon bun day and the council that started it.
View source
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