Cassia

BENZALDEHYDE The precursor for speed. It makes up nearly 100% of bitter almond oil. Not a very popular oil with the DEA. Some hints Benzaldehyde is indispensable for the flavoring industry. It is the flavor in almond extract and synthetic benzaldehyde is used in all cherry flavorings. Also, there is currently a little loophole in the system when it comes to a product called Roasted Cassia Oil . Apparently, some manufacturers take cassia oil and run it through some sort of industrial process to change it into benzaldehyde. No one wanted to tell Strike the particulars of how this was done. But one company chemist gave me some hints (You can get really chatty with some of these guys). 

The most ancient uses of spices appear to be therapeutic in nature. The use of spices was common in China but tittle, if any, authentic Chinese records exist to confirm this. According to Chinese myths and legends, Shen Nung, the Divine Cultivator, founded Chinese medicine and discovered the curative powers of many herbs. He is said to have described more than 100 plants in a treatise reportedly written in 2700 BC. It has been shown, however, that no written language was available in China at that time. Although some of the herbal uses in the treatise go back several centuries BC, the work seems to have been produced by unknown authors in the first century AD. Other records on the use of cassia and ginger are known to have been written in the fifth and fourth centuries BC, in the latter case by Confucius. 

In 1991, vanilla beans were the highest valued spice import, with shipments totaling 69.0 million, followed by black and white pepper at 60.6 million, capsicum peppers and paprika at 42.6 million, sesame seed at 40.6 million, and cassia and cinnamon at 27.8 million. The most expensive spices, on a unit value basis, include saffron, 1116/kg average New York spot vanilla beans, 80.50/kg for Bourbon beans from Madagascar, Comoros, and Reunion, and 22.05/kg for Java beans and cardamom, 38.54/kg for grade AA bleached Indian and 3.88/kg for Guatemalan mixed greens. 

Cinnamomum cassia B/um (Lauraceae) is the so-caUed cassia. It is native to southeastern China and has not been grown successfuUy outside of this area. The dried bark of this evergreen tree is stripped, ground, and sold almost exclusively in China. The leaves and twigs of the tree contain the same flavor components as the bark and are steam distUled to yield the cassia oil of commerce. Infrequently, smaU amounts of bark are bundled and exported as cassia lignea but caimot compete with the other varieties as bark spice. The Chinese prefer to seU the essential oil. 

Other botanical varieties are caUed cassia, but the leaves of these varieties differ in flavor components from those of the bark. Saigon cinnamon, C. loureirii Nees, from Viet Nam, closely resembles Chinese cassia in appearance but is grown on the other side of the mountains and has an entirely different flavor character, containing no orthomethoxy cinnamic aldehyde. C. burmani B/ume, ie, Korintje or Kerintje cinnamon and Padang or Batavia cinnamon, is from Sumatra and Indonesia. C. sintok B/ume is native to Malaysia and of minor commercial importance. 

Zeylanicum. The second type of cinnamon is the dried inner bark of the shoots of the tree Cinnamonium lanicum Nees, a moderately sized coppiced evergreen bush of the laurel family cultivated in Sri Lanka. The bark is stripped, roUed into quills, dried, and then shipped in large bundles. The aroma and flavor of the lanicum type, which contains eugenol as well as cinnamic aldehyde, is much milder than the cassia type. 

Rectified oils have been redistilled to improve a particular property or characteristic, such as flavor or aroma. Eor example, natural oil of peppermint is frequently rectified to remove dimethyl sulfide, which has a powerful and objectionable cooked vegetable note deleterious to the use of the oil in cmme de menthe Hqueurs. Distillation is also used to remove psoralens, which are harmful photosensitizing agents present in natural bergamot oil. Color may be removed, eg, from cassia oil, by vacuum steam distillation. A desirable component, such as 1,8-cineole (eucalyptol) 85% in eucalyptus oil, may be... 

A number of other valuable aroma chemicals can be isolated from essential oils, eg, eugenol from clove leaf oil, which can also, on treatment with strong caustic, be isomerked to isoeugenol, which on further chemical treatment can be converted to vanillin (qv). Sometimes the naturally occurring component does not requke prior isolation or concentration, as in the case of cinnamaldehyde in cassia oil which, on dkect treatment of the oil by a retro-aldol reaction, yields natural ben2aldehyde (qv). This product is purified by physical means. 

Table 31. Comparative Analysis of Cassia Leaf Volatiles ...

There are at least two routes currently being used to produce natural benzaldehyde. Principal flavor houses are reported to market a product which is derived from cassia oil. The chief constituent of cassia oil is cinnamic aldehyde which is hydrolyzed into its benzaldehyde and acetaldehyde constituents. This is a fermentative retroaldol reaction. Whether this hydrolysis allows the final benzaldehyde product to be considered natural is of great concern. The FDA has reportedly issued an opinion letter that benzaldehyde produced from cassia oil is not natural (15). 

Cinnamaldehyde, [14371-10-9] CgH CH=CHCHO (bp, 253°C at 101.3 kPa), produced by the alkaline condensation of benzaldehyde and acetaldehyde is the main ingredient in cassia oil. It is used in soap perfumes and as an intermediate in the production of other flavor and fragrance compounds. 

Phenyl-2-propenal [104-55-2], also referred to as cinnamaldehyde, is a pale yeUowHquid with a warm, sweet, spicy odor and pungent taste reminiscent of cinnamon. It is found naturally in the essential oils of Chinese cinnamon Cinnamomum cassia, Blume) (75—90%) and Ceylon cinnamon Cinnamomum lanicum, Nees) (60—75%) as the primary component in the steam distilled oils (27). It also occurs in many other essential oils at lower levels. 

Cinnamaldehyde has been efficiently isolated in high purity by fractional distillation from cassia and cinnamon bark essential oils. This material has been utili2ed in several manufacturing protocols (39—41) for the preparation of natural ben2aldehyde through a retro-aldol process. Since the late 1970s the demand for natural flavors has increased dramatically. This demand has led to a corresponding requirement for a more extensive line of readily available natural aroma chemicals for flavor creation. 

Phenyl-2-propen-l-ol [104-54-1], commonly referred to as cinnamyl alcohol, is a colorless crystalline soHd with a sweet balsamic odor that is reminiscent of hyacinth. Its occurrence in nature is widespread as, for example, in Hyacinth absolute (Hyacinthus orientalis) (42), the leaf and bark oils of cinnamon Cinnamomum cassia, Cinnamomum lancium, etc), and Guava fmit [Psidiumguajava L.) (43). In many cases it is also encountered as the ester or in a bound form as the glucoside. 

Cassia Siamea Lam. Alkaloid, Ci HjgOjN. Toxie. (Wells, Philipp. J. Sci., 1919, 14, 1.)... 

Spr-eimen A ll.lCldi. A turbid lii tiiJ which on smndiug separateil into two layers, the upper one wat- r. Ihn lower one cassia oil of a light Khine win coloui. ... 

The following parts of the cassia plant have been distilled bv us with the appended results —... 

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