Briar

Briar (English briar, French bruyère) is the undisputed king of woods used in pipe making. It is obtained from the underground root burl of the tree heath (Erica arborea), which grows across the Mediterranean basin. Tree heath is a shrub that can reach 6-7 meters; but the part that becomes a pipe isn't the trunk, it's this burl that grows between the root and the trunk.

Nearly every classic wooden pipe that comes to mind today when someone says "pipe" is made of briar.

Why Briar?

The root burl is a water and nutrient reservoir that lets the plant survive in its arid, fire-prone terrain. This function gives it three properties ideal for a pipe:

• Heat resistance: Its dense, mineral-rich structure withstands the heat of the ember for years.
• A balance of lightness and strength: Despite being hard, it's light enough to be carried in the mouth.
• Grain pattern: The burl's fiber structure forms aesthetic patterns that makers classify under names like "straight grain" and "birdseye."

The hardest and most fire-resistant briar is understood to come from old roots growing slowly on barren, agriculturally unsuitable Mediterranean slopes. Not every burl is usable either: only those that are round and regular in shape are suitable for a pipe, and misshapen ones are already eliminated at harvest.