Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
Track gangjinhyang with reminders and record whether it helped, in the app.
Gangjinhyang is the fragrant heartwood of the tree Dalbergia odorifera, known in English as rosewood heartwood. It is a single herb used in Korean medicine, not a formula or a blend. Healers traditionally gave it for bruises after a fall or blow, for chest and stomach discomfort, and as a wound powder.
The wood is dark, resinous and strongly aromatic. It is usually cut into chips or ground to a powder, then simmered into a tea, taken as a fine powder, or burned as incense. In Korea it is called gangjinhyang; the same drug is called jiang xiang in Chinese practice.
Here is the honest verdict up front: this herb has a long record of traditional use, but we could not find human trials that test it on its own. Traditional use is not proof that something works, and that gap applies to everything on this page. Laboratory work suggests it may slow blood clotting, which matters mainly as a safety issue.
Nobody has shown clearly how gangjinhyang works in people.
In Korean tradition it is described as a warm, aromatic herb that "moves blood" and stops bleeding. In plain terms, practitioners used it where they believed blood had become stuck or stagnant after an injury.
Laboratory and animal studies point to two effects that may be real. Extracts of the wood appear to reduce platelet aggregation (blood cells clumping together to form a clot), and some compounds reduce inflammation markers in cell dishes. Whether either happens at the doses people actually take is unknown.
You may see gangjinhyang sold as:
Wood chips or shavings for simmering into a tea, usually added in the last few minutes.
A fine powder, taken by mouth in small amounts or dusted on minor wounds in older practice.
An ingredient inside multi-herb Korean and Chinese patent formulas, often for chest discomfort or injury.
Incense sticks and cones, and a distilled essential oil used in perfumery. The essential oil is for scent only and is not for swallowing.
Gangjinhyang has been used in Korean medicine for centuries and appears in the East Asian materia medica shared with Chinese practice, where it is called jiang xiang. Classical texts list it for trauma, bleeding wounds, and pain in the chest and belly.
The tree is native to Hainan and parts of southern China and Southeast Asia. Heavy demand for the timber and the medicine has pushed wild Dalbergia odorifera onto protected species lists, so much of what is sold today is substituted, farmed or mislabelled.
See a doctor straight away if you notice bleeding that will not stop, black or tarry stools, blood in your urine or vomit, large unexplained bruises, or a severe headache after a knock to the head.
Get emergency help for chest pain, especially if it spreads to your arm or jaw, or comes with sweating or shortness of breath. Do not treat chest pain with a herb.
Stop and speak to a doctor if you develop a spreading rash, swelling of the face or lips, or trouble breathing.
Also check in with a doctor or pharmacist before you start, if you take any prescription medicine at all.
Evidence grades and traditional-use labels are explained in our methodology. Nothing here is medical advice.
Reviewed by the HealisticMD editorial team How we grade evidence →
The published evidence for gangjinhyang is weak or absent. That usually means no controlled trial has tested it, not that a trial found it ineffective — the two are different, and we grade only what has been published.
What it is typically used for, usual dose, cautions, and the study behind it where real trial data exists.
One email with the summary. We'll also send a short weekly evidence update — unsubscribe any time.
