Vietnam Agarwood: Crassna, Khanh Hoa, Kỳ Nam and How It Compares with Chinese Stock

Vietnam agarwood is resinated wood from Aquilaria trees grown in Vietnam, most often Aquilaria crassna. The species is native to Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, and it is the tree behind most Vietnamese chips, oil and carvings on the market.^[1]

The numbers explain the price. According to Liu et al. (2013), only about 10% of Aquilaria trees produce agarwood without human help, so most supply today comes from induced, cultivated trees.^[8]

Like all agarwood, it forms when a tree is wounded and fills the damaged tissue with aromatic resin. The healthy wood around it stays pale and nearly scentless.^[2] Therefore the word "Vietnam" on a label tells you where the tree grew, not how much resin the piece holds.

We should be clear about our own position from the start. AgarwoodTown grows and processes plantation Aquilaria sinensis at our 100+ mu plantation in Guan Zhu Town, Dian Bai District, Maoming, Guangdong. We do not buy, blend or resell Vietnamese wood. This article is market context for buyers who weigh both origins.

Trầm Hương, Dó Bầu and Kỳ Nam: The Vietnamese Vocabulary

Vietnamese has its own words for every layer of the trade. Trầm hương, often shortened to trầm, means agarwood in general. Dó bầu is the common name of the crassna tree itself, and growers use it when they talk about plantations.

Kỳ nam names the top tier: soft, waxy, intensely sweet wood that Japanese buyers call kyara and Chinese buyers call qínán (奇楠). Our guide to kyara vs kynam naming traces those terms across languages, so here we focus on what they mean for Vietnamese supply.

In practice, an English invoice may say "Vietnamese oud", a Chinese buyer may say "芽庄沉香" (Nha Trang agarwood), and the CITES permit will simply name the species. All three can describe the same lot.

Vietnamese Agarwood Incense: Nhang Trầm and Nụ Trầm

Much Vietnamese agarwood reaches buyers as incense rather than wood. Vietnamese agarwood incense is sold as nhang trầm (sticks) and nụ trầm (cones), made from agarwood powder bound into a paste, and it is a common sight at temples, family altars and markets across the country.

Quality varies widely. Some products carry a high share of real agarwood powder; others carry very little and rely on added fragrance. We would ask any seller for the agarwood share by weight and a test burn before a volume order, exactly as with Chinese incense.

Vietnam agarwood comes mainly from the forested hills of central and southern-central Vietnam, where crassna grows naturally, and from plantations spread much more widely. Wild trees once grew along the Annamite range, from the north-central provinces down to the south-central coast.

Today the picture is different. Decades of collection thinned the wild population sharply, and crassna is now assessed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List.^[1] Most wood moving through Vietnamese trade channels now comes from cultivated dó bầu trees.

Plantation planting spread through many provinces, from the north-central coast to the south and the Central Highlands. Some areas are known locally for smallholder plots, while others host larger estates. Because no single public register covers them all, we do not quote acreage or tree counts.

Why Khanh Hoa and Nha Trang Became Trade Names

Khanh Hoa, the coastal province around Nha Trang, has the strongest agarwood reputation in Vietnam. Its mountains historically yielded some of the most prized wild wood, including kỳ nam, and the region built a trade culture around it.

The link is visible even in public space. A seafront landmark in Nha Trang takes its name from trầm hương, and local shops sell agarwood in many forms. Moreover, the city's name became a brand in the Chinese collector market, where "芽庄" signals the top of the Indochinese range.

However, a place name on a label is a claim, not a certificate. Much of what sells as "Nha Trang" today is a style or grade description rather than proof of a Khanh Hoa tree. Serious buyers therefore treat the name as a starting point for questions, which we cover in section 8.

The North-Central Planting Belt

Khanh Hoa gives Vietnam agarwood its trade name, but much planting now happens further north. Tropenbos has described agarwood agroforestry across the north-central provinces, from Ha Tinh to Thua Thien Hue, mostly on smallholder land.^[3]

The same source called for international certification so that oils are classified consistently. Until that exists, Vietnamese oil labels, like Chinese ones, need checking against samples and lab reports.

The Hui'an and Xingzhou split matters because it shapes price expectations in China. Collectors often associate Hui'an wood with sweeter, cleaner notes and Xingzhou wood with heavier, more resinous ones. These are broad tendencies, and good graders judge the piece in hand rather than the family name.

For a wholesale buyer, the table offers one practical lesson. Every label above can be honest, and every one can be stretched. As a result, a label should open a conversation about documents, not close it.

Kỳ nam is the reason Vietnam agarwood holds a special place among collectors. Historical accounts tie the finest kyara of the Japanese incense tradition to the central Vietnamese coast, once part of the Champa kingdom.

Kỳ nam differs from ordinary agarwood in texture and behaviour. Ordinary resin sits hard and glassy in the wood, while kỳ nam is softer and can feel sticky when warmed. It also gives off a sweet, cool scent at room temperature, before any heat reaches it.

The Chinese and Vietnamese trades sort kynam further by colour, using terms such as white, green, yellow, purple and black kynam. In practice, these names describe resin colour and character more than separate species. They are useful in conversation, but no two dealers draw the lines in quite the same place.

Wild kỳ nam from old Vietnamese trees is now extremely scarce. When genuine old pieces appear, they mostly change hands between collectors rather than through open wholesale. Therefore any offer of "wild Vietnamese kynam" in bulk deserves careful scrutiny and complete paperwork.

Plantation kynam is a different story. Growers in several countries, including Vietnam and southern China, propagate kynam-line trees by grafting and then induce them. Our own plantation kynam wood from Guangdong starts from $0.89/g. It is Chinese plantation material, not Vietnamese kỳ nam, and that is how it should be described on paper.

The comparison shows why the wild versus plantation question matters more than the country name. A plantation chip from Vietnam and a plantation chip from Guangdong share more in their economics than a wild Vietnamese piece shares with either of them.

The same pattern holds across the trade. Wild material trades on story and scarcity, while plantation wood trades on grade. Our comparison of wild and cultivated agarwood prices explains how that gap works for buyers of any origin.

How Plantation Wood Is Induced in Vietnam

Vietnam was among the early places where growers tested deliberate induction on cultivated Aquilaria. Reviews of induction history in Asia describe how methods moved from simple wounding to drilled holes, inserted inoculants and chemical treatments.^[4]

The methods themselves are broadly similar to those used in China. Growers drill or cut the trunk, introduce a stimulus, and then wait while resin builds around the wound. The waiting period, the inoculant and the tree's age all change the final grade.

At our plantation we use artificial inoculation on A. sinensis and buy from more than 100 contracted plantation farmers. Although the tools look alike across borders, the species and climate differ. That is why Vietnamese plantation wood and our own wood can feel and smell quite different at the same visual grade.

Species is the first and most durable difference. A. crassna and A. sinensis are distinct trees, and each produces its own balance of aromatic compounds when it forms resin.^[2] Our overview of the main Aquilaria species covers how they compare across Asia.

Chemistry explains some of the variation. Published analyses of agarwood list a long catalogue of sesquiterpenes and 2-(2-phenylethyl)chromones, and their proportions vary between species, regions and samples.^[5] Consequently, neither origin is simply "better"; they are different materials for different uses.

Scent and Texture: What Buyers Report

Buyers who compare samples side by side often describe Vietnamese wood as sweeter when heated. By contrast, they tend to describe our sinensis chips as cleaner, cooler and more austere, which suits many kōdō and Chinese domestic buyers.

Texture follows grade more than country. A dense, well-resinated sinensis chip and a dense crassna chip can both sink in water, while low-grade wood from either origin floats. For that reason, we grade our own Dian Bai oud wood chips on our internal D to AAA scale, from $0.24/g at entry grade with a 100 g MOQ.

Oil shows the same pattern. Gulf attar houses that like a sweet profile sometimes look to crassna-based oils, while perfumers wanting a dry, woody base often test sinensis. Our hydro-distilled sinensis oud oil starts from $7.00/g, and the CO₂-extracted agarwood oil from $1.50/g, both with a 10 g MOQ. For the neighbouring Cambodian profile, see our Cambodian oud and crassna oil guide.

Within China, the comparison does not stop at the border either. Buyers often weigh Vietnamese pieces against wood from Hainan, which has its own strong collector reputation; our Hainan agarwood guide covers that market. Likewise, Indian buyers compare both with the Assam material described in our Assam agarwood overview.

All Aquilaria species, including crassna, have been listed in CITES Appendix II since 2004. International trade in Vietnam agarwood therefore needs an export permit from Vietnam's CITES authority in most cases.^[6]

• Species name: the permit should name the species. A lot sold as Vietnamese crassna should not arrive on paperwork for a different species or country.
• Source code: CITES permits carry a source code, such as wild or artificially propagated. A "wild" sales story on plantation-coded paperwork, or the reverse, is a mismatch to resolve before payment.
• Re-export: Vietnamese wood bought from a third country travels on re-export documents. Ask for the chain back to the original export permit.
• Annotation #14: some finished, retail-packaged products are exempt. Check the current annotation text, because it changes at CITES meetings.
• Your side: importing countries, including EU member states, may add their own rules. Confirm with your national CITES authority.

For our own sinensis stock, every wholesale shipment carries a grading note or certificate plus a CITES Appendix II export permit where required. The CITES agarwood permit walkthrough explains that paperwork step by step.

These steps apply to any origin, including ours. A good Vietnamese supplier and a good Chinese supplier should both welcome them, because they protect honest sellers as much as buyers.^[7]

Some buyers keep both origins in their range, sourcing each from specialists in its home country. For the Chinese side, we offer paid, non-refundable samples from 100 g of chips or 1 g of oil, and we reply to enquiries within 4 business hours, Monday to Saturday, 9:00–18:00 China time.

Buyers who need large sections rather than chips can also review our plantation agarwood logs from Guangdong, from $88 per piece. Whatever the origin, the same rule holds: buy on documents and on the sample in your hand, not on the place name alone.