Cassia

Two thirds of five spice before anything else has gone in the pan.

Red braise: the bark's tannin cuts fat where a delicate cinnamon would not.

Cinnamon rolls, red hots, snickerdoodles. The heat is why it survives sugar.

Salt-ferment plus hot bark; the master stock formula in two items.

One quill in the stock and the broth reads warmer without reading sweet.

Loud enough to survive a pie filling that would swallow true cinnamon whole.

Burnt sugar and tannic bark, both slightly bitter, both slightly hot.

Eugenol under cinnamaldehyde. Neither is subtle and neither has to be.

Peel bitterness meets bark tannin; the sweetness sits underneath both.

Roast sugars need a hot bark, not a floral one, or it turns to pudding.

Fat bird takes tannic bark where a lean one would just taste of dessert.

Two tannins stacked; the bark lengthens the roast rather than sweetening it.

Both dry and tannic; the bark is why Mexican drinking chocolate feels rough.

Dried fungus and dried bark, both woody, both better twenty minutes in.

Bramble tannin against bark tannin. Nothing sweet happens, which is the point.