Yes, you can make cinnamon tea with ground cinnamon, and it works well. The standard ratio is about half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon per cup of hot water, though some recipes call for up to a full teaspoon. The process is simpler than using cinnamon sticks, but ground cinnamon doesn’t dissolve in water, so you’ll need to handle the texture.
How to Make It
Bring water to a boil, then let it cool for about a minute before adding your ground cinnamon. Stir well. A good starting point is half a teaspoon per 8-ounce cup. If you want a stronger flavor, work up to a full teaspoon. Because ground cinnamon is essentially a powder with a large surface area, it releases flavor almost immediately, no long steeping required. Give it about five minutes to cool to drinking temperature, and your tea is ready.
You can add honey, a squeeze of lemon, a splash of milk, or a small amount of sweetener to round out the flavor. Cinnamon also pairs well with ginger, turmeric, or black pepper in a warm drink.
The Texture Problem (and How to Fix It)
The biggest downside of using ground cinnamon instead of sticks is the gritty residue. Cinnamon contains essential oils that are hydrophobic, meaning they repel water rather than mixing into it. The result: fine particles that float on top, clump together, and eventually settle into sludge at the bottom of your cup. This is normal and not harmful, but it’s not pleasant to drink.
You have a few options. The simplest is to let the powder settle for a few minutes and just stop drinking before you reach the bottom of the cup. For a cleaner result, pour the tea through a coffee filter or a fine-mesh strainer lined with cheesecloth. A paper coffee filter catches the finest particles. A French press also works: add the cinnamon and hot water, let it sit, then press the plunger down to trap the sediment.
Ground Cinnamon vs. Cinnamon Sticks
Cinnamon sticks produce a cleaner, lighter tea. You simmer one or two sticks in water for 10 to 15 minutes, then remove them. No straining needed, no grit. The flavor is more delicate and aromatic.
Ground cinnamon gives you a bolder, more intense flavor right away because more surface area is exposed to the water. But that intensity can tip toward bitterness if you use too much, especially with cassia cinnamon (the most common type sold in grocery stores). Cassia has a punchy, almost sharp spice quality, sometimes compared to red-hot candy. Ceylon cinnamon, sometimes labeled “true cinnamon,” is milder and sweeter with floral, clove-like notes. If you find your tea too harsh, try reducing the amount to a quarter teaspoon or switching to Ceylon.
Cassia vs. Ceylon: Why It Matters for Tea
Most ground cinnamon on store shelves is cassia cinnamon, and it contains a compound called coumarin that can stress the liver in large amounts. Cassia contains up to 1% coumarin by weight, while Ceylon cinnamon contains only a trace, roughly 0.004%. The European Food Safety Authority sets the safe daily limit at 0.1 milligrams of coumarin per kilogram of body weight. For a 150-pound person, that works out to about 6.8 milligrams per day.
Testing of commercial ground cassia cinnamon has found coumarin levels averaging 2,650 to 7,017 milligrams per kilogram of powder. One teaspoon of ground cinnamon weighs roughly 2.5 grams, so a teaspoon of cassia could contain anywhere from about 6 to 18 milligrams of coumarin. That means a single cup of strong cassia cinnamon tea could approach or exceed the daily limit for some people. If you drink cinnamon tea regularly, Ceylon is the safer choice. An occasional cup of cassia tea is not a concern for most people.
Blood Sugar and Other Potential Benefits
Cinnamon tea has a modest but real body of clinical evidence behind it, particularly for blood sugar. Multiple human trials have found that cinnamon, in both whole and water-extracted forms, can lower fasting blood glucose, improve insulin sensitivity, and reduce cholesterol and triglycerides. These studies have involved people with type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, polycystic ovary syndrome, and healthy volunteers. The doses in these studies ranged from about 500 milligrams of extract to 6 grams of whole cinnamon per day, taken over periods of 12 days to 4 months.
One teaspoon of ground cinnamon also provides about 1.25 grams of fiber and 0.38 milligrams of manganese (roughly 17% of the daily value). These aren’t huge numbers, but they add up if you’re drinking a cup daily. Keep in mind that cinnamon’s bioactive compounds are only slightly soluble in water. You’ll extract some flavor and some active compounds, but not as efficiently as alcohol-based extracts would. Drinking the sediment at the bottom of your cup, rather than filtering it out, gives you more of the cinnamon’s total content.
Tips for a Better Cup
- Start small. Begin with half a teaspoon per cup and adjust upward. Too much ground cinnamon tastes bitter and chalky.
- Use fresh cinnamon. Ground cinnamon loses its potency within a few months. If your jar has been open for a year, the flavor will be flat.
- Filter for smoothness. A paper coffee filter removes nearly all the grit. Pour slowly to avoid overflow.
- Choose Ceylon for daily drinking. If this is becoming a habit, the lower coumarin content matters over time.
- Pair with fat. A splash of milk or coconut cream helps the hydrophobic oils in cinnamon disperse more evenly, improving both texture and flavor.