the library

Cassia cinnamon

Spice & roots· spice

Every one of its 15 compounds carries a paper the library can cite.

• benzaldehydearomaaldehydereads as burning aromatic taste (PubChem)Measured in 54 of 338 ingredients.cite

  odour activity value 3.57 ± 0.97 in the C. cassia BARK oil and NOT DETECTED in the leaf oil — one of two compounds the paper's OAV table finds in the bark alone, against a threshold of 0.75 mg/L credited to a cited reference — Huang et al. 2025, Foods (Table 2, row 3 'Benzaldehyde')
• coumarinaromacoumarinreads as burning taste (PubChem)Measured in 2 of 338 ingredients.cite

  measured in the C. cassia samples and reported by the study as higher in C. cassia than in C. zeylanicum, with only one of sixteen ground cinnamon samples recording a C. zeylanicum-like coumarin level. The often-quoted figures of about 1% in C. cassia against 0.004% in C. zeylanicum are the paper's citation of an earlier source, not its own measurement, and are recorded here as context rather than as evidence. Coumarin is the reason EFSA sets a tolerable daily intake for cinnamon at all, and it is the single sharpest chemical difference between the two cinnamons a bar can buy. — Lipan et al. 2025, Food Chemistry: X (the study's volatile inventory, compound V39 'Coumarin', classed as a phenol at calculated RI 1410 against a literature RI of 1406, and the Results discussion of coumarin content across the C. zeylanicum and C. cassia samples surveyed on the Spanish market)Measurement only — the source text is licensed facts-only.
• β-cadinenearomaterpenoidreads as slight pleasant odor (PubChem)Measured in 3 of 338 ingredients.cite

  3.88 µg/g of the bark oil — and one of the few sesquiterpenes that runs the other way, at 8.04 µg/g in the leaf oil, about twice the bark level — Huang et al. 2025, Foods (Table 1, row 'β-Cadinene' CAS 523-47-7, column CEOP)
• borneolaromaterpenoidreads as piney, camphor-like odor (PubChem)Measured in 13 of 338 ingredients.cite

  0.73 ± 0.15 µg/g of the bark oil against 2.48 ± 0.20 µg/g in the leaf, significantly different; odour activity value 4.05 ± 0.83 in the bark against 13.77 ± 1.11 in the leaf. Included despite its small mass because it is one of only seven compounds the paper judged worth an OAV calculation, and one of only two whose OAV is higher in the leaf than the bark. — Huang et al. 2025, Foods (Table 1, Alcohols block, row 'Borneol' CAS 507-70-0, column CEOP; and Table 2, row 4)
• delta-cadinenearomaterpenoidMeasured in 9 of 338 ingredients.cite

  64.46 µg/g of the C. cassia bark essential oil — the largest sesquiterpene and the second-largest compound overall, at about 1.9 times its level in the leaf oil (34.31 µg/g) — Huang et al. 2025, Foods (Table 1, row '(+)-d-Cadinene' CAS 483-76-1, column CEOP)
• Cinnamaldehydearomaaldehydereads as sweet taste (PubChem)Measured in 4 of 338 ingredients.cite

  701.34 µg/g of the C. cassia bark essential oil — roughly eleven times the next-largest compound in the same column, and about three times everything else in the table combined. The leaf oil of the same species measures 636.83 µg/g, so this compound is not what separates bark from leaf. — Huang et al. 2025, Foods (Table 1 (Chemical content in essential oils by different parts of cinnamon), Aldehydes block, row 'Cinnamaldehyde' CAS 104-55-2, column CEOP (cinnamon bark essential oil))
• 2-methoxycinnamaldehydearomaaldehydeMeasured in 1 of 338 ingredients.cite

  2.45 µg/g of the C. cassia bark essential oil, and 8.70 µg/g in the leaf oil of the same species. Small by mass and included because methoxycinnamaldehyde is the compound most often used to distinguish cassia from Ceylon cinnamon; this node carries the (Z)- isomer the paper measured, while the repo's Ceylon profile carries an (E)-o- form whose CID is recorded as ambiguous. — Huang et al. 2025, Foods (Table 1, row '(Z)-2-Methoxycinnamaldehyde' CAS 76760-43-5, column CEOP)
• delta-cadinolaromaalcoholMeasured in 2 of 338 ingredients.cite

  9.83 ± 3.26 µg/g of the bark oil against 4.49 ± 0.95 µg/g in the leaf, significantly different by the paper's own test — the largest of the sesquiterpene alcohols — Huang et al. 2025, Foods (Table 1, Alcohols block, row 'τ-Muurolol' CAS 19912-62-0, column CEOP)
• humulenearomaterpenoidMeasured in 26 of 338 ingredients.cite

  12.46 µg/g of the bark oil, 9.38 µg/g in the leaf. The CAS number the paper prints is humulene's, not caryophyllene's — the two names are used interchangeably in the literature and this node follows the CAS. — Huang et al. 2025, Foods (Table 1, row 'α-Caryophyllene' CAS 6753-98-6, column CEOP)
• sativenearomaterpenoidMeasured in 2 of 338 ingredients.cite

  4.29 µg/g of the bark oil, 2.37 µg/g in the leaf — Huang et al. 2025, Foods (Table 1, row '(+)-Sativene' CAS 3650-28-0, column CEOP)
• alpha-calacorenearomaterpenoidMeasured in 3 of 338 ingredients.cite

  6.34 µg/g of the bark oil against 6.19 µg/g in the leaf — one of the few compounds present at essentially the same level in both materials — Huang et al. 2025, Foods (Table 1, row 'α-Calacorene' CAS 21391-99-1, column CEOP)
• alpha-muurolenearomaterpenoidMeasured in 7 of 338 ingredients.cite

  55.82 µg/g of the bark oil against 26.41 µg/g in the leaf oil of the same species — a 2.1-fold bark enrichment, among the largest of any compound present in both — Huang et al. 2025, Foods (Table 1, row 'α-Muurolene' CAS 10208-80-7, column CEOP)
• gamma-muurolenearomaterpenoidMeasured in 8 of 338 ingredients.cite

  7.63 µg/g of the bark oil and NOT DETECTED in the leaf oil of the same species — one of the compounds that separates the two materials outright. The same compound is present in all fifteen hop varieties of the hops node. — Huang et al. 2025, Foods (Table 1, row 'γ-Muurolene' CAS 30021-74-0, column CEOP)
• CubenenearomaMeasured in 3 of 338 ingredients.cite

  7.32 µg/g of the bark oil and not detected in the leaf oil — Huang et al. 2025, Foods (Table 1, row 'Cubenene' CAS 29837-12-5, column CEOP)
• α-copaenearomaterpenoidMeasured in 18 of 338 ingredients.cite

  45.54 µg/g of the bark oil, 36.94 µg/g in the leaf. The CAS number the paper prints identifies it as α-copaene, the same compound the hops node carries, so the two join. — Huang et al. 2025, Foods (Table 1, row 'Copaene' CAS 3856-25-5, column CEOP)