Where Does Cinnamon Come From? Cinnamon has been used through the ages for all sorts of things rangingg from embalming to meat preservation. Now when most people think of cinnamon they imagine the delicious powder that you add to bearclaws and sambuca. But there are actually a lot of varieties of cinnamon. The cinnamon you sprinkle on your oatmeal actually comes from a tree, Cinnamomum verum, which is native to Sri Lanka. This type of cinnamon was first described in Chinese writings dating back almost 5,000 years and was one of the spices that drove European colonization of South and Southeast Asia.