Saigon Cinnamon: Vietnamese Cassia, Its Oil, Coumarin and Uses

Despite the name, Saigon cinnamon isn’t a southern lowland tree: it grows wild in the mountains of Annam, in Vietnam. It’s Vietnamese cassia, the dried bark of Cinnamomum loureiroi, and the big, bold one of the three barks sold as cassia. Think supermarket cinnamon turned up, intensely sweet and hot. Like any cassia, it also comes with a coumarin question.

At a glance

What Saigon cinnamon is

PROSEA describes three barks traded as cassia: Chinese cassia (C. aromaticum), Indonesian cassia (C. burmanni) and Vietnamese cassia (C. loureiroi). Saigon cinnamon is that last one. Ceylon cinnamon, C. verum, is a different species from Sri Lanka. For the wider family, see Ceylon cinnamon and cassia cinnamon.

Don’t let the name fool you. This isn’t a southern lowland tree. PROSEA says it grows wild in the mountains of Annam, in Vietnam, and is cultivated there too. The main Vietnamese growing areas get 2,500–3,000 mm of rain a year on lateritic soils of old volcanic origin. Botanists don’t agree on how far the species reaches. PROSEA notes it’s sometimes treated as limited to Vietnam and sometimes as extending into Cambodia and Laos.² Kew lists it as native to Vietnam.¹

You’ll see the species name spelled two ways. Kew’s accepted name is Cinnamomum loureiroi;¹ PROSEA uses Cinnamomum loureirii.²

Flavor and the compounds behind it

Saigon cinnamon tastes like supermarket cinnamon turned up: intensely sweet and hot, with a slightly bitter, almost peppery finish. The chemistry fits that picture:

These are ranges across samples, not single measurements, and they overlap. The top of the Vietnamese range sits above the Chinese one, which fits Saigon cinnamon’s reputation for strength. But PROSEA gives no cinnamaldehyde percentage for Vietnamese bark oil, so you can’t check the claim that it has the most cinnamaldehyde of any cinnamon against this source. PROSEA also notes that of cassia’s less volatile compounds, only coumarin adds much to taste and smell.²

How the bark is harvested

Vietnamese cassia is usually harvested when the trees are 10–12 years old. The bark is cut from standing trees, sometimes from bamboo scaffolding, with horizontal cuts 40 cm apart and vertical cuts 25–35 cm apart. That gives flat, unrolled slabs. Then the trees are felled, the thinner bark from smaller branches comes off as quills, and the stumps are left to regrow.² Cassia in general is graded by type, looks and volatile-oil content.

Production and trade

Hard numbers for Vietnamese cassia alone are thin, and the ones that exist don’t separate species.

• PROSEA (FAO estimate for 1998). A harvested area of 6,100 ha producing 3,400 tonnes, for Vietnamese cassia.²
• PROSEA (exports, 1966–1976). Dry-bark exports from Vietnam ran from 5 to 300 tonnes a year.²
• USAID (brief published 2024). Vietnam is the world’s third-largest cinnamon producer with 17% of global output, and the largest exporter, with export turnover of USD 292.2 million in 2022.⁵ Its table gives Vietnam 166,875 ha and 45,000 tonnes, with no year stated. The brief describes Vietnamese cinnamon as cassia and names Yen Bai, Lao Cai, Quang Nam, Bac Kan and Quang Ninh as growing areas.

The USAID figures cover all cinnamon grown in Vietnam. They don’t say how much of it is C. loureiroi and how much is Chinese cassia, so they describe the country’s cinnamon trade, not Saigon cinnamon specifically. You’ll also see claims that Vietnamese production has grown 10% a year since 2008, and that exports stopped during the Vietnam War while Indonesia took over the market. We couldn’t trace either to a source.

How Saigon cinnamon is used

PROSEA says the inner bark of all three cassias gets used the same way, to flavor food at home and in industry. It adds that the United States clearly prefers cassia over Ceylon cinnamon, “and for Vietnamese cassia in particular.” Vietnamese cassia bark, its bark oil and its leaf oil each carry a US GRAS listing (2289, 2290 and 2292).²

In the kitchen it does what any cassia does, only more so. Try it in cinnamon toast, cinnamon rolls, apple and pumpkin pies, and blends like pumpkin pie spice, apple pie spice and garam masala. Since it’s strong, you may want a little less when it’s standing in for ordinary cassia. Whole quills can go into braises and stocks; just fish them out before serving. You’ll often read that Saigon cinnamon is the cinnamon in Vietnamese pho, but no source we opened says which cinnamon pho uses.

Whole or ground? See ground cinnamon vs. cinnamon sticks.

Buying and quality

Read the label, because your eyes won’t help much. Germany’s risk agency BfR says shoppers can hardly tell Ceylon and cassia apart.⁶ A jar marked “Saigon” or “Vietnamese” cinnamon names the species. One marked just “cinnamon” in a US supermarket is most likely some kind of cassia.⁷ Good bark smells strongly sweet and spicy when you break it.

Storage

No regulator or standards body publishes a shelf life for cassia, and the figures floating around online don’t trace back to anything. Keep it sealed, cool and dark, and trust your nose: if a pinch of the ground spice smells faint, it’s faded.

Safety

Coumarin

A 2013 US study of authenticated bark found only traces of coumarin in Ceylon cinnamon but substantial amounts in all three cassias, “especially C. loureiroi and C. burmannii.”³ The abstract doesn’t give per-species figures, so we can’t say by how much Saigon beats the others. You’ll often see it called the highest-coumarin cinnamon of all. This study supports “among the highest,” not a ranking.

The European Food Safety Authority’s tolerable daily intake for coumarin is 0.1 mg per kg of body weight.⁸ BfR estimates that a 60 kg adult reaches it with about 2 g a day of cassia of average coumarin content, and a 15 kg child with about 0.5 g.⁹ BfR says a small group of especially sensitive people can get liver damage even from relatively low doses.⁶ NCCIH says ordinary amounts of cassia don’t usually supply enough coumarin to cause significant problems, but that long-term use could matter for sensitive people.⁷

The EU sets no coumarin limit for cinnamon itself,⁶ but it does cap coumarin in foods made with cinnamon, from 50 mg/kg in traditional or seasonal bakery ware labeled as containing cinnamon down to 5 mg/kg in desserts.¹⁰ The authors of the US study point out that coumarin is “banned from food in the United States” as an additive, while coumarin that comes in with cassia isn’t regulated.³

Is coumarin a blood thinner? You’ll hear that a lot. France’s food safety agency, ANSES, says the anticoagulant effect often credited to coumarins belongs to dimeric derivatives such as dicoumarol, and simple coumarins don’t have it.¹¹

Lead alerts

Since 2024 the FDA has put out public health alerts on specific lots of ground cinnamon found to contain 2.03 to 7.68 parts per million of lead.¹² The alerts cover particular products, not Saigon cinnamon as such. The product list is on our cinnamon page.

Health claims

NCCIH says research doesn’t clearly support cinnamon for any health condition, and it’s unclear whether cinnamon supplements help with diabetes or weight loss.⁷ We found no source showing that Saigon cinnamon in particular helps with blood sugar or infections, or that it’s a meaningful source of minerals or fiber in cooking amounts, so we don’t make those claims here.

Substitutes and comparisons

Any cassia works in a pinch, or Ceylon cinnamon if you want something milder. PROSEA notes that cinnamon and cassia barks are interchangeable in many uses.² Taste as you go. See cinnamon substitutes, Saigon vs. Ceylon cinnamon, Ceylon vs. cassia cinnamon and Korintje cinnamon, the Indonesian cassia. Overdid it? See too much cinnamon. Related: cassia buds, cloves and ginger.