A little farther down the garden we pass another evergreen
tree. It is cinnamon, originally from Sri Lanka, and its glossy,
leathery leaves are, according to its tag, crimson when
new. Today it is mainly used for flavouring, but the ancient
Egyptians used it for embalming and in medieval times it was
a popular aphrodisiac. Both the leaves and the bark are highly
aromatic; cinnamon, as we cooks know it, is derived from dried strips of the bark, a sample of which is provided in a
coconut cup next to the sign.