Can You Reuse Cinnamon Sticks? How to Tell When One Is Done

Yes. A cinnamon stick is good for more than one use, and a single pot of tea will not exhaust it.

Ground cinnamon gives everything it has at once. A whole quill releases it slowly, because the flavour sits in aromatic oils inside the bark and hot liquid draws them out a little at a time.

How many times can you use one

There is no fixed number.

It depends on how hot the liquid was, and on how long the stick sat in it. It also depends on what it sat in. Two hours in coconut milk takes far more out of a quill than eight minutes in a teapot.

The stick will tell you. Snap it, or scrape the outside with a thumbnail, and smell it. If the sweetness is still there, it has another use in it. If it smells of wet wood and nothing much else, it is done.

Reusing a stick in drinks

The easiest reuse takes no work at all. Pour the first pot of tea and leave the sticks where they are. Top the pot up with hot water. The second cup comes out softer and a little less sweet.

The same works for coffee, for hot chocolate, and for a jug left in the fridge overnight.

Reusing a stick in cooking

A stick that has been in a savoury dish needs a rinse under hot water. Then it needs to dry properly. Once it is hard and dry again it can flavour a pot of rice, a pilaf, or a second curry.

Do not put a damp stick back in the jar with the dry ones. It can go musty, and it can take its neighbours with it. Leave it on a rack or a sunny windowsill until it snaps cleanly again. If a stored stick ever smells sour, or shows any fuzz on it, throw that one out.

When a stick is finished

Scrape it and smell it, and if there is nothing there but wet wood it has no more to give. At that point it goes on the compost.

The rest of what a cinnamon stick is good for, from the morning coffee to rice and slow braises, is in how to use cinnamon sticks.

Our sticks are hand-peeled and hand-rolled on our family estate and partner farms in Sri Lanka. There is a 50g pack to try them with, and an 850g bulk pack if you cook with them every week.