Teak is also one of those woods with a high concentration of silicate, which takes the edge off your tools.
Each species of wood seems to have its own utility. In carriages made of wood, dozens of species were used for different purposes.
We've transferred some of this thinking to using metals; iron in one place, copper in another, but wood was the primary ingredient in the structure of our lives for many centuries.
You must be refering to the hard white things sometimes found in teak - avoid such timber like the plague!!
I still prefer to have wood around me. I like the look and feel of it. I especially like rosewood. Teak is also good.
Walnut is very nice.