KYARA HOUSE奇楠舍
中文Inquiry List
KYARA HOUSE

We grow it before we sell it

KYARA HOUSE is built on a simple difference: most agarwood traders buy wood, we grow it. Our groves sit in Dianbai District, Maoming - the county that has produced Chinese agarwood for centuries and today hosts the country's largest concentration of Aquilaria cultivation. That means we can tell you which grove a batch came from, when it was inoculated, and how long it rested before distillation. It also means the supply does not depend on someone else's harvest.

We do not claim to be the cheapest source in China, and we will not sell you material we cannot document. What we offer is traceable grade, consistent batches, and the paperwork that actually clears customs - which, for agarwood, is the part most suppliers get wrong.

The word itself

Where the word kyara comes from

Kyara is the Japanese reading of 伽羅, a Chinese transliteration of Sanskrit. Two roots are proposed: kālāguru — kāla (black) + aguru (agarwood), the black agarwood — and tagara, a precious fragrant wood. Either way the word travelled the same road: Sanskrit → Middle Chinese → Japanese, then came back into Chinese as 奇楠 (qí nán), the name you already know.

In the Japanese incense canon, kyara sits at the top of 六国五味 — the six countries and five flavours — the grade a master reaches for last. It is why 伽羅女 (kyara-onna) came to mean a beautiful woman, and 伽羅の春 a joyful new year. When the Imperial Household Agency analysed Ranjatai, the first incense of Japan, in 1996, its composition proved to be kyara.

One honest note for buyers who know the trade: in the Japanese system kyara classically means Vietnamese and Southeast Asian material. What we grow in Dianbai is Aquilaria sinensis — the Chinese species, cultivated, not wild-harvested. We write cultivated kyara because that is exactly what it is: the same grade of resin, a different tree, a documented grove. With wild stock exhausted and CITES closing in, that is not a compromise. It is the only supply that will still be legal in ten years.

Cultivated kyara (Qi Nan) · Aquilaria sinensis · Dianbai, Maoming origin
kālāguruSanskrit kāla (black) + aguru (agarwood) — the black agarwood. Transliterated into Chinese, and the first two characters became 伽羅.
tagaraSanskrit for a precious fragrant wood. Transliterated 多伽羅; the last two characters became 伽羅.
奇楠 qí nánChinese for kyara. The same word, written back in Chinese characters after a thousand-year detour.
Buyers

Markets we serve

Middle East (Gulf)

Buys density and room-fill. Bakhoor is burned daily, not saved. Wants dark, sweet, animalic oils and will pay for kynam without negotiating hard. Ramadan and Eid are the calendar - order 90 days ahead.

Japan

Buys restraint and provenance. Kyara (伽羅) is a word with six centuries behind it, so accuracy of grade is not a marketing detail - it is the product. Small quantities, high expectations, long relationships.

Europe & North America

Buys clean and traceable. Heavy animalic oud can be a hard first impression here; Sinensis and lighter oud grades sell more easily. Documentation, IFRA alignment and sustainability story matter more than price.

Southeast Asia & China-region

Buys grade literacy. These buyers already know wormhole from lengyan and bantou from red soil - descriptions must be precise or you lose credibility in one sentence.

FAQ

Questions buyers actually ask

Can you actually export agarwood? It is CITES-listed.
Yes, but only with a permit. All Aquilaria species are Appendix II, which means regulated trade is legal - unregulated trade is not. We obtain a CITES export permit per shipment from the provincial endangered-species office, and we will not ship without one. Budget 90 days from confirmed order to permit in hand, and start early.
Is essential oil also covered by CITES?
Treat it as yes. Some jurisdictions treat finished derivatives more leniently than raw wood, but enforcement varies by port and by officer, and the cost of getting it wrong is a seized shipment and a blacklisted importer. We ship oil under the same permit chain as wood. Confirm your own country's import rules in writing before your first order.
What is the difference between kynam and oud?
Kynam (奇楠, kyara in Japanese kodo) is not a species - it is a condition. It forms when a specific fungal infection drives resin production far past normal, leaving wood so saturated it is soft to the knife and sweet to the taste. Oud is the broader category of resinous agarwood. All kynam is agarwood; very little agarwood is kynam.
Why is Chinese Sinensis priced below kynam but smells nothing like it?
Because price tracks scarcity, and quality is a separate axis. Southeast Asian oud is scarce and dark; Sinensis is more available and cool-floral. A buyer who only knows Vietnamese material usually expects Sinensis to be a cheap substitute. It is not - it is a different instrument, and the buyers who understand that are the ones building differentiated shelves.
Do you do private label?
Yes, on the oud oil grades and on bakhoor. We fill to your bottle, apply your label, and match viscosity and scent profile to a target sample. Minimum runs depend on format; tell us the target product and we will quote the run size honestly, including where we are not competitive.
Can I get samples before a full order?
We prefer it. The Discovery Oil Quartet exists precisely so you are not buying a tola of kynam on faith. Sample sets ship under the same documentation as full orders, just smaller. For buyers in the Gulf, Japan and the EU we routinely send samples first and quote second.
What is your minimum order?
It depends on format: oils from 1 unit, stick boxes from 10, trial sets from 5, accessories from 30 to 100 depending on tooling. Trade tier pricing starts at the quantities shown on each product page. We would rather do a small first order that repeats than a large one that does not.
How do you ship fragile 21 cm sticks?
Rigid tube, EVA flocked insert, then a rigid outer carton. Sticks shipped in soft packing arrive broken at rates that reach 15 percent, and breakage is the most common reason a first order never becomes a second. The tube costs cents; the replacement shipment costs the relationship.