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Harvesting ‘true cinnamon’: The story of the Ceylon spice-By Zinara Rathnayake A worker stuffs cinnamon barks with small cuttings of the bark called quillings to make one 42-inch cinnamon quill [Nathan Mahendra/Al Jazeera] Source:Aljazeera It is 9am in the Carlton estate in Thihagoda, a small town about 160km (100 miles) south of Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo, and the July sun hides behind inky clouds. The air is thick and hot. Two men walk to the main estate building carrying piles of cinnamon branches. Inside, a group of women sit on the cement floor, chatting as they peel cinnamon. Since 2000, workers here have planted, harvested and peeled cinnamon, sending batches of the fragrant sticks to a factory in Kamburupitiya, a 15-minute drive away, where they are cut, packed and loaded onto shipping containers for export. ...