Most of what we make is solid mango or reclaimed hardwood, and that is what this site shows. We also build in sheesham and acacia, and a buyer comparing quotes from Jodhpur will meet all three. They are not interchangeable. Each has a look, a weight and a set of paperwork of its own, and the right one depends on what the range has to do.
Mango
Mango comes from orchard trees felled when they stop fruiting usefully, so no forest is cleared to supply it. It sits around 640 to 700 kg per cubic metre, holds a carved edge, and takes stain evenly, which makes it the most adaptable of the three for finish: natural, waxed, washed, painted or whitewashed. It is also the most economical.
Its weakness is moisture. Mango comes off the saw wet and moves if it is rushed, which is why every board is brought down to eight to ten per cent before it is joined. Certified plantation mango is available on request.
Sheesham
Sheesham, Dalbergia sissoo, is North Indian rosewood and long the traditional furniture timber of the north of the country. It is heavier than mango, at around 770 kg per cubic metre, with a darker heartwood that suits pieces meant to look substantial. It costs more, and its supply has tightened.
It also brings paperwork. Sheesham has been on Appendix II of CITES, the convention on trade in endangered species, since 2017, along with the rest of the rosewood genus. Since 2022, items with less than 10 kg of timber each can be exported without a CITES permit. A sideboard is far heavier than that, so sheesham furniture travels with a CITES export permit, which has to be in place before the container is loaded. The rules are reviewed at each CITES meeting, so check the current position with us when you plan a sheesham range, and check what your own country asks for on import.
Since 2022, sheesham items under 10 kg of timber ship without a CITES permit. Furniture does not weigh under 10 kg.
Acacia
Acacia is a large family of trees, and the timber sold under the name varies with the species. What the furniture acacias share is hardness and contrast: a pale sapwood against a darker heartwood, and a grain that shows strongly under an oil or a clear finish. It is at its best where the timber itself is the decoration.
Because one name covers several species, ask which one a quote is for. Two acacia quotes can be for two different woods.
Choosing between them
If the finish is the design, whether painted, washed or whitewashed, choose mango: it takes colour evenly and costs least. If the timber should read as dark and solid, choose sheesham, and build the permit into the timeline. If the grain is the point, choose acacia. And if the history of the wood is the point, choose reclaimed, which has a note of its own in this journal.
Weight rarely decides a container, which fills by volume first. It does decide how a piece is handled, and how a drawer feels to the customer who opens it.
Written at the works, Boranada · October 2026
