Comparisons of agarwood and kyara specimens.

Kynam, qinan (奇楠), kyara. The esteemed names of a very precious fragrant material on earth that almost no one seem to truly know in the modern world today.

Western Jin records of agarwood.

Historically, the Vietnamese called it calambac, in Sanskrit, it was recorded as kala-nam. The chinese words for kynam can be found with two variations of the word qi (奇), of which the former refers to unique, amazing, special. Nan (楠) refers to a certain wood type with three categorical species, where xiang nan or fragrant nan is one of them.

Several written records point to the existence of kyara/kynam like materials to be distinct from normal agarwood/jinkoh. In ancient texts from Western Jin dynasty (AD200), the words honeyed fragrance appear to refer to a soft pliable, honey-like material that was very fragrant.

Shadings of an old incense burner

In the old Nguyen dynasty imperial palace of Huế in central Vietnam, there are large incense burners with carvings of Vietnamese imperial tribute items, where one can find a carving of two types of trees, one known as “chenxiang” or agarwood tree, the other known as “qi-nan” or kynam tree tree.

Comparisons of agarwood and kynam via diagrams in the Chinese Compendium of Herbs.

18th Century pictorial versions of the Chinese Compendium of Herbs (本草纲目) by Japanese envoys in China had also depicted distinctions between an agarwood tree and a kynam tree.

Structurally different in the drawings, it is apparent that such trees did exist, and were specially classified, with the knowledge of being lost over the centuries.

So what exactly is kynam or kyara?… Stay tuned.

Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia are the three countries in the union of Indochinese, that border each other. The border areas between the three countries are mainly forests, where there is luxuriant vegetation of the evergreen tropical, including Aquilaria Crassna, the species that create the best type of Oud – Kynam.

Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia - the union of Indochina, where Aquilaria crassna grows vigorously in large quantities.

Vietnamese Oud, from more than a thousand years ago was exploited and put into use, before the neighbors Laos and Cambodia (López-Sampson (2020), “History of Use and Trade of Agarwood”. Econ Bot 72, 107–129, 2020).

In Vietnam, for thousands of years, Oud has always been considered the quintessential, sacred item of Mother Earth. A long time ago, Oud is a rare wood, often used for offering to kings and royals. However, not everyone knows the legend about this special treasure.

"Seeking for Oud" – an arduous journey full of blood and tears

Oud is hidden deep in dangerous forests & it takes decades or millenniums to appear. People who have their jobs seeking Oud may have to exchange their lives to find this worth-a-fortune wood. Among a thousand Aquilaria trees, there may be only one tree creating Oud; among a thousand Oud trees, there may be only one tree creating Kynam.

Kynam is the first-class Oud, divided into four types (Nguyễn Thị Hiền (2009): Nghiên cứu bổ sung kỹ thuật nhân giống vô tính để phục vụ công tác cải thiện giống theo hướng tinh dầu. Báo cáo chuyên đề thuộc đề tài “Nghiên cứu đánh giá thực trạng và phát triển bền vững cây Dó trầm Aquilaria spp.” Hà nội, 2009) with four different colors:

• White Kynam (Bạch Kỳ): ivory white, light gray, extremely rare, the most expensive.
• Green-blue Kynam (Thanh Kỳ): blue-gray, greenish color, very rare and expensive after the white one.
• Yellow-brown Kynam (Huỳnh Kỳ): brown-yellow, golden brown, rare and expensive after the green-blue.
• Black Kynam (Hắc Kỳ): indigo black, tar, precious and expensive after the yellow-brown.

The thousands of-year-old White Kynam is considered the most unique and extremely rare aroma. “White the best, Green-blue the second, Yellow-brown the third, Black the fourth.” is an ancient statement that proves that color is not the only factor determining Oud’s quality. (Yang-yang Liu, Zhi-hui Gao (2017), “A Review of Quality Assessment and Grading for Agarwood”, Chinese Herbal Medicines, Volume 9, Issue 1, 2017).

Oud quality is determined by a combination of the tree species, color, and scent. (Barden, A., N. A. Anak, T. Mulliken, and M. Song. 2000. Heart of the matter: agarwood use and trade in CITES implementation for Aquilaria malaccensis.)

In ancient times, Oud was only used as a Fengshui, offering items was tributed to kings or only the nobility can use it, or a Fengshui item to bring in luck & fortune to owners.

Wood grains (Wood-fibres). In genuine Kynam piece straight grains run roughly parallel, rarely see spiral grains, irregular grains and wavy grains that are available in normal agarwood (and in low grade Kynam), see Fig1.
Tip: You should use a digital microscope to magnify wood-fibres in Kynam piece and normal agarwood, see Fig2.

Fig1. Fig2.

2. Hardness. Kynam is classified as softwood whose side hardness is under 150 lbf (pounds-force). When newly dug up from the ground, Kynam is very soft, but over time it becomes harder and harder. In general Kynam is not as hard as normal agarwood.
3. Odoriferous properties. Kynam has delicious & charming odour. Kynam has its own special fragrance that does not resemble the smell of normal agarwood. It is difficult to describe Kynam odour in words. In classification of fragrances (using Fragrance wheel), Kynam odour belongs to the classes Dry woods, Mossy woods, Woods and Woody Oriental, see Fig3.
Tip: To wet Kynam piece by a small quantity of warm water, afterwards tightly wrap it by a nylon sheet (a banana ocrea is better) then you open it after about 10 minutes of exposure to the sun your will find a sweet-smelling aroma that you cannot see in normal agarwood.
Fig3

4. Specific gravity. Kynam (and normal agarwood) has specific gravity from 0.90 g/cm3 to 1.13 g/cm3, high grade Kynam often has specific gravity > 1 (sinking kynam). Rarely find sinking Kynam.
5. Smoke & taste. To chew a tiny splinter of Kynam piece you can find in your tongue tip several tastes like acrid, sweet, bitter and somewhat sour. But for normal agarwood, you can find bitter taste and somewhat acrid only.
When burning a small chip of Kynam piece you can see a straight smoke rising up that is slowly disappeared and accompanied by a captivating aroma. When burning a small chip of normal Agarwood you can see a spiral smoke that is swiftly disappeared and also accompanied by a scented fragrance.
In general, to recognize the taste and smell of smoke, you must reply on your sensory imagination and your own feeling.
6. Chemical composition. In 2006, Japanese scientists found in Kynam collected from Khanh Hoa province a new spirovetivane-type sesquiterpene (4R,5R,7R)-1(10)-Spirovetiven-11-ol-2-one. Until now, we did not find this sesquiterpene in our normal agarwood chips, so this sesquiterpene might be used as one of the important indications of quality evaluation of Kynam. An other important chemical found in Kynam is the sesquiterpenoid 2,6-ditert-butyl-4-methylphenol, see Fig4.

Tip: Kynam (and Agarwood) traders and collectors tend to prefer such Kynam piece (and Agarwood chip) that contains more oil glands ( i.e. VOC deposits), see Fig5.

7. Plant source and provenance. We think that Kynam is originated from the species Aquilaria crassna Pierre ex Lecomte of the family Thymelaeaceae. Kynam exists only in the virgin and deep forests of the provinces located in the Center of Vietnam: Quang Nam, Quang Ngai, Phu Yen, Khanh Hoa, Gia Lai, Kontum. Please be noted that normal agarwood can be originated from 7 genera (Aquilaria Lam., Gyrinops Gaertn., Gonystylus Teijsm. & Binn., Wikstroemia Endl., Aetoxylon <Airy Shaw> Airy Shaw, Phaleria Jack, Enkleia Griff.) and about 30 main species (see attachment named “Distribution of 26 main Aquilaria species by 15 countries”). See an Aquilaria ancient tree in Tiên Cảnh, Tiên Phước, Quảng Nam (Fig6)

Dating back to the Western Jin dynasty, and re-published in Song Dynasty and Ming dynasty records before it faded away, the ancient Chinese appeared to classify aloeswood by the following terms 蜜香, 沉香, 鸡骨香, 黄熟香, 栈香, 青桂香, 马蹄香, 鸡舌香.

 There are serious flaws in this ancient Chinese classification despite it being very commonly used in sales pitch and marketing today. These classifications apply generally only to the external physical shapes and properties of the wood, with nothing much mentioned on the scent profile, localities, speciations, tastes, textures and other perceivable properties of aloeswood!!

So for interest sake, I’ve presented a translation here, sometimes the description of the original texts were too vague, and thus were mildly interpolated to modern equivalents to the very best means possible.

What is Kyara or Kynam?

Đây  là  lần  đầu  tiên tôi  nghe  đến  cái tên  cây kỳ nam, bản  thân  nó  là  kỳ  nam  rồi  chứ  không phải  qua  năm  tháng  được  cấy  tạo  từ  trầm  tiến  lên  kỳ. 

Thông thường trầm và kỳ sẽ được tạo ra như thế nào: 

Trong tự nhiên hàng nghìn cây dó mới có 1 cây có thể có trầm, chính vì vậy mà trầm vô cùng hiếm trong tự nhiên. Với sự phát triển và nhu cầu sử dụng trầm trên thế giới ngày một lớn, người ta đã tìm ra được cách cấy tạo trầm gồm cấy hoá chất hoặc cấy sinh học. Trên thân cây dó bầu người ta sẽ đục tác động vào thân cây và sau đó quét 1 lớp hoá chất lên chỗ thương đó, hoặc là cấy nấm sinh học lên thân nơi tạo ra vết thương đó rồi qua thời gian tự cây dó tiết ra 1 chất để chữa lành cho bản thân mình, và chất đó chính là trầm, và để lâu sẽ lên thành kỳ nam.

Từ khi thân cây còn rất bé tí xíu như ngón út mà trong lõi đã ra kỳ, không phải cấy tạo, và chỉ cần tạo 1 chút tổn thương trên thân cây là có thể tích tụ thành kỳ rồi. 

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