Kynam the most expensive wood in the world

When you think of the rarest, most precious materials on Earth, things like diamonds, platinum, or gold probably pop into your head, but did you know that a special type of wood is actually more expensive than any of those?

Kynam, or “kyara” as it’s known in Japan, is an extremely rare type of agarwood used in the perfume and incense industries for its complex and very strong fragrance. It is the most sought-after type of “oud”, the name used in the Arab peninsula to describe the dark resinous wood produced in the heartwood of the aquilaria tree, in specific circumstances. A single gram of kynam can fetch well over $10,000, making it by far the most expensive wooden on the planet, and also one of the most expensive natural materials.

Essentially, kynam is the best kind of agarwood that money can buy, and it’s important that all types of agarwood are relatively expensive. Also known as aloeswood, eaglewood, or simply oud, agarwood has been an important part of Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Arab and Southeast-Asian cultures for thousands of years. It has always been a precious commodity, but demand for it has increased dramatically in recent years, and with it, the price.
It’s worth noting that while plantation-sourced agarwood is not exactly cheap, it is nowhere near as expensive as wild agarwood, especially that of superior quality. That’s because plantation agarwood is harvested after only a few years after infection, whereas high-quality wild agarwood can be several hundreds of years old, commanding a premium price. And there is no agarwood more expensive than kynam.

“Beyond, way beyond the best there is something much rarer that we call kynam,” agarwood trader Alan Mahaffey told Al Jazeera. “It’s the rarest wood on earth. It’s rarer than titanium, uranium, platinum, rarer than diamond. “It can be $10,000 for one gram. In Shanghai they sold a piece two or three years ago, it was $18m for two kilos of kynam, so it’s like $9m per kilo.”