Step out of the Round House and the air tells you where you are. Twelve acres of cinnamon wrap the hill, and the scent — warm, sweet, faintly woody — follows you from the pool to the path and back.
The estate is a working cinnamon plantation, and one of the quiet privileges of staying here is watching how Sri Lanka’s most treasured spice is grown, harvested and processed — almost entirely by hand.
A bark worth its weight
True Ceylon cinnamon — Cinnamomum verum — is prized worldwide and quite different from the cassia found in most supermarkets. It is peeled from young stems, the inner bark eased away in long ribbons, then rolled and dried into the tight quills you know.
Walk the rows
Our peelers work the plantation through the week, and our manager Kasun is always delighted to walk guests through the grounds — the cinnamon rows, the mature trees that complete the building’s circle, and the kilometre-long garden path lined with indigenous fruit trees.
Every piece of the estate tells a story — just ask, and Kasun will reveal the ones that make the Round House so special.
Back at the house, the spice finds its way into the kitchen and the glass alike: a homemade cinnamon iced tea by the pool, cinnamon ice cream with drunken grilled pineapple, and the warm note running through the morning’s first coffee.
