Cinnabon engineered its cinnamon roll around one specific Indonesian cinnamon.
Rich Komen opened the first Cinnabon near Seattle in 1985, with a roll the baker Jerilyn Brusseau spent three months perfecting. The recipe leans on Makara cinnamon — grown on Sumatra, prized for high oil content and intense aroma. The mall smell drifting from the ovens, not any billboard, is the advertisement.
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