Ep. 369 | Chenxiang, Pound for Pound, Costs More than Gold

The China History Podcast

Laszlo Montgomery

Places & Travel, Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 23 October 2025

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Here's something a little different from the usual CHP fare. It concerns a natural substance that's not too well-known outside of Asia, mainly because it's so dang expensive! Chénxiāng 沉香 or Agarwood as it's also known, grows inside the heartwood of certain Aquilaria trees. Chenxiang has a few interesting things about it and is often mentioned in Chinese literature. This episode includes a bunch of poems and a couple of chengyu's that all contain references to chénxiāng. While I was on the subject, I'm also mentioning five other trees that, while nowhere nearly as expensoive as chenxiang, were rare and precious enough to be driven to the brink of extinction. These four are Xiǎoyè Zǐtán 小叶紫檀, Hǎinán Huánghuālí 海南黄花梨, Lǎowō Dàhóng Suānzhī 老挝大红酸枝, Jīchìmù 鸡翅木, and Jīnsī Nánmù 金丝楠木.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everyone, Laszla Montgomery here with another CHP episode for you. Thanks for tuning in.
0:06.3	This one you're hearing today, well, it isn't past its sell-by date by any stretch of the means,
0:11.4	but it's been out on Patreon and CHP premium for more than three months.
0:16.2	So I'm inviting you to consider supporting my effort since 2010 to bring you and hundreds of thousands of
0:22.7	CHP listeners around the world, all these family-friendly episodes, introducing the greatest hits
0:28.4	and rarities from China's pretty long history. Let me explain how this whole topic showed up on my state-of-the-art radar system.
0:40.2	I'm working with a Chinese manufacturer who has a factory in Cambodia.
0:44.8	Now, while I was out there last June, 2025, we went and visited his friend from his hometown in
0:50.6	Shandong, Mr. Fung.
0:52.6	Well, this friend had been in Cambodia, living in Phnom Penheng
0:56.9	for almost 20 years. Speaks Kamae, and has done very well for himself. And like most of these
1:03.4	kinds of homes and offices, of these Zhonggu al-Pans that I've been to over the decades,
1:09.6	well, he had a large and elaborate carved desk and placed on top of this elaborate surface
1:15.6	were all these tea accoutrement.
1:18.5	I didn't see a copy of the Cha Ching hanging on the walls anywhere, but other than that,
1:23.9	Lu Yu would have wholeheartedly approved of this guy's setup.
1:27.5	And by all accounts, Mr. Fung, he was a very... Lu Yu would have wholeheartedly approved of this guy's setup.
1:34.6	And by all accounts, Mr. Feng, he was a very experienced and knowledgeable tea person.
1:47.5	He was very subtle and nonchalant and ripped open a single serving foil pack of some rock tea from Wu Yishan and for the next hour or so he did his thing and though the discussion concerned matters related to investment in Cambodia and the current situation with
1:53.4	respect to U.S. trade he kept that tea flowing expertly deftly I think we were drinking
2:00.8	Tielohan so besides trade and investment, this
2:04.7	Mr. Feng, he showed me this massive collection of Chen Xiang wood. And based on all the wood,
	...

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