Where the tale of cinnamon comes alive
Situated on the Mirissa Hills cinnamon estate near Weligama, the Cinnamon Museum to be officially opened on Saturday, April 6, tells the story of the “Queen of Spices”.
The gentle coastal hills of southern Sri Lanka with their laterite soil provide perfect growing conditions for Cinnamomum Zeylanicum or “true cinnamon native to the island”. To date visitors and locals alike have looked for a place they can discover more about cinnamon, how it is produced and why it spread from here to the four corners of the world. The Cinnamon Museum is designed to meet that need.
Said Miles Young, Chairman of Mirissa Hills: “We are thrilled to unveil this cinnamon museum in Mirissa, offering visitors a unique experience. Here they can understand what cinnamon is and what makes it special, but also what makes Sri Lankan cinnamon “true” – and so different from cheaper substitutes. This museum is conceived as a gift to the landscape of Sri Lankan tourism, but also as a tribute to all those who do work in this industry”.
Much to discover: A sculpture of the Phoenix and the courtyard of the museum premises designed by Anjalendran
The museum is designed as a visitor centre, where visitors can experience a walk around the plantation, watch a demonstration of peeling, sample local food, buy cinnamon products from the estate, stay in its four bedrooms and even enjoy its own infinity pool.
The idea of a museum goes back some years but was delayed by Miles’ career moves and then by the global pandemic. When the estate was bought, Miles looked for an architect who represented the very best of Sri Lanka, who was original but who also respected the vernacular traditions. He found him in C. Anjalendran, a former assistant of Geoffrey Bawa, and who now produces some of the country’s most iconic architecture. Anjalendran chose a site on a steep hillside, surrounded by cinnamon, where he built a galleried courtyard with bedrooms downstairs and an exhibition space and a dining area above. The style is elegant, but of the countryside, and incorporates salvaged materials – Dutch doors and columns.
As you enter the museum, you climb a staircase lined with a collection of maps showing how the rumoured “cinnamon lands” first attracted the attention of the Portuguese and the Dutch. Then they were more widespread, right up into the Kandyan kingdom, before the days of the plantations brought them closer to the coast.
Why was cinnamon so popular with the outside world? Partly it was because of its intrinsic properties as a preservative, and partly because of its delectable aroma. The museum traces its uses in ancient Egypt, where it was both an ingredient in the mummification process and also perfume, the famous Susinum, a favourite of Cleopatra.
It became a prize commodity in Greece, and then Rome. At one time, puritanical Romans claimed that the Empire was being drained of its wealth through the import of spices.
At this time, cinnamon became associated with legend, especially the legend of the Phoenix, the mythical bird which was supposed to live for a thousand years. Just before its death, it flew out into the forest, gathered cinnamon, built a nest, lay down to die, and the next morning the sun ignited the cinnamon, created a pyre, reducing the Phoenix to dust – out of which a small chick arrived, the new Phoenix. The Phoenix thus became the symbol of rebirth and resurrection.
By the Middle Ages, European demand for cinnamon rocketed with the growth of urbanisation, it was believed to provide an important ingredient in the diet – “heat” to balance “cold”. Arab middlemen had dominated the trade, but then the Portuguese sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, and a direct trading relationship began. It enriched many, but the gatherers and peelers were forced to work in a harsh system of labour.
Cinnamon has always been more than just a commodity, but something with a sense of romance when it comes to the end user. The museum explores its role in poetry, for instance, with one wall dramatically painted with a mural of poetic fragments which mention the spice. It is associated with the spirit world, and with all religions, and also with beauty and love. Then, it has medical benefits, which are being increasingly realised and validated through science: it is an effective antioxidant, it fights against bacteria, it reduces the blood glucose of type two diabetics and mitigates HDL cholesterol.
When asked which exhibit he is particularly fond of Miles says that it is the plague mask: “in the past, the preservative qualities of cinnamon were exaggerated to the extent that it was believed to protect people from the plague – so plague doctors wore extremely long nose cones stuffed with this spice, made out of leather. I had to go to a shoemaker in Colombo to have one replicated – and explaining what it was, was something of a challenge!”
Outside, the cinnamon slopes around the museum have been replanted with new cinnamon, now providing its harvest. Miles is especially pleased to be able to showcase the quality of the cinnamon. He says: “cinnamon is like wine. It depends for its quality on a whole variety of factors, but especially its “terroir” – the combinations of soil, slope and sun – we are blessed with all three”.
An important mission of the museum is to distinguish between the quality of true cinnamon and the cheap, inferior products marketed as cinnamon in some parts of the world, especially the United States – but which in fact is cassia. Cassia is harsher altogether than cinnamon, and contains coumarin, a compound harmful with heavy consumption.
If the visitors leaving the Cinnamon Museum feel that in Sri Lanka there is cinnamon of superb quality, and that quality counts, then it will be a massive accomplishment, says Miles.
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