Agarwood and Oud: One Material, Many Names — A Trade Naming Map for Buyers

Yes. Agarwood and oud name the same thing: the dark, aromatic wood that forms when an Aquilaria tree fills an injury with resin. "Agarwood" is the botanical and trade term in English, while "oud" is the Arabic word that most fragrance buyers now use.^[1]

Why is resinous agarwood scarce? According to Liu et al. (2013), only about 10% of Aquilaria trees form agarwood naturally; the rest stay pale, almost scentless wood unless they are wounded and infected.^[7]

There is no separate oud tree and no separate agarwood product. A chip we grade on our table in Guan Zhu Town is agarwood to a European importer and oud to a retailer in Riyadh. Nothing about the wood changes between the two conversations.

We have covered how the resin forms and what forms it is sold in elsewhere, in our beginner explainer on oud. This article has a narrower job. It maps the names, shows where each word is used, and explains which words belong on commercial documents.

According to TRAFFIC's 2000 review of the trade, the same material also travels as eaglewood, aloeswood and gaharu, which is why one shipment can carry several names on its paperwork.

Why One Material Carries So Many Names

Agarwood has been traded across Asia and the Middle East for well over a thousand years. Each culture that bought it gave it a name in its own language, and those names stuck.

Moreover, the trees themselves grow across a wide range. The genus Aquilaria occurs from northeast India through Southeast Asia to southern China, and the related genus Gyrinops also yields resinous wood.^[2] Producing countries named the wood one way; consuming countries named it another.

The result is a trade where a single shipment can pass through three vocabularies. In practice, the grower writes Chinese, the exporter writes English, and the end buyer sells it in Arabic or Japanese.

How the Material Behind Both Names Forms

Both names describe the same thing: heartwood of Aquilaria trees, and of the related genus Gyrinops, that darkens with aromatic resin after the tree is wounded and infected by fungi. Healthy wood is pale and nearly scentless. The resin, rich in sesquiterpenes and 2-(2-phenylethyl)chromones, is what gives agarwood, or oud, its value.

That is also why grade words travel with both names. The more resin a piece holds, the darker, heavier and more fragrant it is. Our guide to agarwood resin explains how it forms, step by step.

Read the table as one material seen through twelve windows. The first ten names all describe agarwood in general. Only the last two are quality tiers, and confusing a tier with a general name is a common and costly mistake.

For example, a buyer who asks for "kyara chips at grade C prices" is asking for two incompatible things. Kyara and kynam describe the rarest resin type; ordinary graded chips are simply agarwood, or oud, at a given grade.

The "aloes" family of names also deserves a note. It comes from old Greek and Latin usage and has nothing to do with the succulent aloe plant. Nevertheless, customs brokers still sometimes confuse the two when a description says only "aloes wood".

The material is identical, but the words carry different habits. "Agarwood" tends to mean the raw wood and the botanical source. "Oud", by contrast, has drifted toward meaning the scent, and often the oil rather than the wood.

That drift matters for B2B buyers because a quote request using one word can be read in two ways. Therefore a careful supplier confirms the physical form before pricing anything.

When Oud Means the Oil

In Gulf retail and in perfumery, "oud" on its own frequently means oud oil. A shop selling "oud" by the tola is selling oil, while a shop selling "oud" by the gram on a scale is probably selling chips.

Our price list separates the two clearly. Plantation oud wood chips start from $0.24/g with an MOQ of 100 g across grades D–AAA. Oil is a different line: hydro-distilled oud oil starts from $7.00/g and CO₂ agarwood oil from $1.50/g, both with a 10 g MOQ.

If you write "please quote 1 kg of oud", expect a careful supplier to ask whether you mean wood or oil. The difference is a factor of many times in price, so the question is not pedantic.

When Oud Means a Perfume Note

On finished perfume, "oud" often describes a scent direction rather than an ingredient. Many fragrances labelled oud are built on an accord of aroma chemicals designed to suggest agarwood, with little or no real Aquilaria oil inside.

"Agarwood" on an ingredient list, however, implies the real thing. So careful brands that use real oil write "agarwood oil" or "Aquilaria oil" in the ingredient list. They keep "oud" in the product name.

For a buyer, the practical rule is simple. Use "oud" for marketing if you like, but use "agarwood" plus the species on anything a regulator, customs officer or lab will read.

Each region has a preferred word, and using it signals that you understand the market. The products also differ, so the name usually arrives with a format attached.

We supply 500+ B2B buyers in 10+ countries. The words in a first email usually tell us which market it comes from. Below is a general guide to reading it.

Gulf and Middle East: Oud, Oudh, Dehn al Oud

In Saudi Arabia, the UAE and neighbouring markets, the wood is oud and the oil is dehn al oud. Buyers there burn chips in a mabkhara for hospitality and wear oil as perfume, so both forms sell side by side.

The spellings oud, oudh and oodh are just different ways to write one word. None of them indicates a grade or origin. Our notes on supplying Saudi buyers cover the formats that market prefers.

Japan: Jinkō and Kyara

Japanese buyers say jinkō (沈香) for agarwood and reserve kyara (伽羅) for the very top tier. In kōdō, the incense ceremony, practitioners classify woods into named groups and appreciate small slivers heated on mica rather than burned directly.^[3]

Consequently, in the general trade a Japanese enquiry that says "jinkō" is more often about wood than oil — typically small, precisely graded wood or pressed incense, such as our Japanese-style koh incense, which starts from $6/g with a 100 g MOQ.

Greater China: Chén Xiāng and Qí Nán

At home in Guangdong we say chén xiāng (沉香), "sinking fragrance". The name reflects the old test of dropping wood in water: heavily resinated pieces sink. The top tier is qí nán (奇楠), usually written kynam in English trade.

Chinese domestic buyers focus on bracelets, carvings and collector pieces, so the vocabulary there is full of tier words. Moreover, chén xiāng is also a pharmacopoeia term in China, which adds a regulatory meaning that the English word agarwood does not carry.

Southeast Asia and India: Gaharu and Agar

In Malaysia and Indonesia, the word is gaharu, used for wood and oil alike. Much of the region's trade historically centred on Aquilaria malaccensis and related species, and the FAO's forestry work on non-wood forest products describes how collection pressure shaped that trade.^[4]

In India, especially Assam, the words agar and agaru appear, and "agar oil" means oud oil. Vietnam uses trầm hương for agarwood and has its own strong collector culture around kynam.

Western Markets: Agarwood, Aloeswood, Eaglewood

In Assam you will also hear "agar agarwood" in search queries and price lists, which simply doubles the Hindi and English names. It is the same material, and on our side it would be quoted as agarwood with the species stated.

European and American buyers mostly write agarwood. Incense specialists and some religious suppliers still say aloeswood. It is an older English name from Greek and Latin, not from the aloe plant.

Eaglewood appears mainly in older forestry and botanical writing. Meanwhile, Western perfumers increasingly use "oud" in product names, so a single Western catalogue may use all three words on one page.

Quality words cause more disputes than the base names do. "Agarwood" and "oud" are neutral; "super", "king" and "double super" are not. They are sales labels, and their meaning changes from one seller to the next.

Academic reviews of agarwood grading show how varied national and commercial systems are, mixing colour, resin content, density, aroma and form.^[5] In practice, no two suppliers' letters line up exactly.

That is why we grade with four tests: looks, aroma, resin content and the sink test. Then we put the result on a grading note. Founder Wang Jianyu still grades the wood himself. The note travels with every wholesale shipment, so the word on the invoice matches what was on the table.

Kynam deserves its own caution. Because the word sells, it gets attached to wood that is merely dark or oily. We allocate genuine kynam wood from our allocation list per enquiry, from $0.89/g, and we do not apply the name to ordinary high-grade chips.

The CITES listing is the reason precise naming matters. Aquilaria species have been listed in Appendix II since 2004, and the Appendices are published by the CITES Secretariat under scientific names, not trade names.^[6]

Every wholesale shipment we send carries a grading note or certificate and a CITES Appendix II export permit where one is required. Live seedlings also travel with a phytosanitary certificate. Ask any supplier for document copies before dispatch so your broker can check the wording against your import paperwork.

Buyers in the EU face an extra layer of implementation rules, which our guide to importing oud incense into Europe explains in more detail.

Most problems with agarwood and oud paperwork come from a handful of naming habits. Each one is easy to avoid once you know it.

• "Oud" with no form: a customs line that says only "oud" can be read as perfume, oil or wood. Always add the form.
• "Aloes wood" without the species: some officers read it as aloe vera. Add Aquilaria and the species name.
• Origin words as grade words: "Cambodian", "Hindi" or "Hainan" describe a place or a scent style, not a grade. Use them only when they are literally true of the material.
• "Wild" on plantation stock: never describe cultivated wood as wild. It misstates origin and can conflict with the permit.
• "Kynam" on ordinary high grades: this inflates value and invites disputes downstream. Reserve tier words for genuine tier material.
• Different names on different documents: if the invoice says gaharu, the packing list says oud and the permit says agarwood, a careful officer may hold the shipment until the three are reconciled.

The fix in every case is consistency. Choose one descriptive line — trade name, species, form, origin, grade — and repeat it word for word across every document.

For oil buyers, the same discipline applies to labels. If your bottle contains our hydro-distilled Aquilaria sinensis oil, you can say agarwood oil with confidence and back it with a GC-MS report, which we provide on request. Our explainer on oud oil extraction covers how hydro and CO₂ oils differ before you choose one.

Finally, remember that the end customer rarely cares which word you use. Regulators and labs do. Write for them on paper, and write for your customer on the shelf.