You may be surprised to learn that most commercial ground cinnamon is actually cassia or a combination of cinnamon and cassia. This practice is permitted with no restriction by most countries. So cassia is not necessarily another name for cinnamon; it is a completely different spice, although they are related.

Cassia is usually a better choice for savory dishes, rather than sweets, while cinnamon is best for sweet baked goods. Dried cassia buds resembling cloves are used in the East for pickles, curries, candies, and spicy meat dishes.

Real cinnamon sticks or quills curl in a telescopic form, in a perfect circle. But, cassia sticks curl inward from both sides, appearing like a scroll.

Cassia has a stronger flavor than the more subtle true cinnamon, which can have floral notes.

The spice more correctly known as cinnamon is harvested from the inner bark of the Cinnamomum verum tree. It is also known as Ceylon cinnamon, a reference to its native country of Sri Lanka (which was formerly known as Ceylon). It is commonly grown in Sri Lanka, India (particularly in the southern state of Kerala), Bangladesh, Brazil, Vietnam, and Madagascar, and other countries. Ceylon cinnamon has a delicate, nuanced flavor that works well in sweet and savory foods and drinks. It has a paler color than cassia and is comprised of many thin layers of bark rather than a single coiled strip of bark. True cinnamon is soft enough to be ground in a (clean) coffee grinder.