AgarAura~Syed’s Ascent
An absolute stunner!
AgarAura~Syed’s Ascent
Excellent! And a mission it was!I recall it being an oud acquisition mission. I missed Syed's Ascent as well, wearing a sample gifted from my brother as part of my Eidi, exceptional agarwood essential oil.
Got u covered
Nice. Been awhile for me.Purple Kinam by EO
Love the rawness and primitive appeal of the Marokes I’ve sampled.Merauke Oud: A private one. What I got in top notch artisanal Oud oils, it has plus one attribute, shoe factory is at a distance. Here oudy, earthy and powdery feel is moving. Sheeny fragrance, whirling wafts are mind exalting.
Thanks!!!Great question @Rasoul Salehi , these type of questions allow us to educate in the more intricate aspects of the oudh journey.
Malaysia jungles offer 17 different sub species of the Aquilaria genus alone, this does not include the 7/8 sub species that the Gyrinops Genus offers. If we were to take the most commonly occurring subspecies in Malaysia which is the Aquilaria Malaccensis, then there is a huge difference in the scent profile of the Malaccensis that is found in the north vs that of the south, and yet we are only talking about the same species. Likewise the Malaccensis in Malaysia vs Malaccensis in India again very different in profile.
Now lets look at the oudh tree, the top of the tree has different profile than the base of the tree, the branches have different scent profiles than the trunk. The outer woods which get infected first when the infection comes from the outside (not from under the roots as that also sometimes happens) will have older infection compared to further in, and the older infected wood will smell different to the younger infected wood within the same tree.
rainfal, soil, amount of sunshine (just like in the wine business) and type of fungus all are variables that cause huge variance on the scent of the oils from a tree.
You will note, we seldom maybe only on a handful of occasions have named the species of wood that the oil came from, rather we name the location. The reason for this is that whoever is claiming that a wood/oil is a certain genus and sub species without witnessing the necessary indicators are erring on the side of risk where they are more likely to be wrong than right. Recently a type of wood has appeared in the oudh world which we have been requested to assist in it's identification, our good colleague Dr Rozi who is the leading authority in Malaysia and likely the world in this matter, have had a look at some of these woods and she can not tell species from just the wood and oil. For identification to be possible the examiner needs to see leafs, fruits and samples of oil/wood to test in the lab before determining the species. Now you can imagine the dilemma we find ourselves in every time someone claims sub species when they haven't seen any indicators. A lot of such confident assumptions are based on misinformation that they have been reading, and we can't blame them.
Further more what you maybe associating to a Vietnamese or Malaysian, or Thai etc are not exclusive to those regions those profiles can be manifest from woods of other regions and species. In that regard we have said this before and say it again, the Malaysian wood is the most robust agarwood and scent profiles of pretty much any region can be coerced from Malaysian woods. Moving forward from that, distillation methods also draw different profiles from the wood.
Distillations that focus on the top notes will produce oils that are head heavy and the same wood distilled focusing on the base notes will smell totally different simply because fragrant compounds of an oil all do not rise at the same temperature. If you look at a GCMS plot you will note that different compounds will rise at different time intervals. There within the distillation process you then have control on what compounds you bring across by time, temperature and pressure. Using such knowledge oils from the same wood will smell totally different based on what has been distilled from that oil. Or on the other hand oils from woods of two different regions smelling very similar based on what has been distilled from them.
The above are just some of the reasons why oils from two different regions can smell the same, or oils from the same region smell so very different.
hope that answers your question.
while i have you here, in 24 hours i should hoepfully get to have my first swipe of: Al Malek Al Maliyzi. stoked to meet the legend.
Sri Pada, my Siddhartha. Well, I always consider it more than Ceylon Oud. Simply marvelous.
Sri Pada, my Siddhartha. Well, I always consider it more than Ceylon Oud. Simply marvelous.
How did you find its fragrance?I saw it for sale & recalled how fondly you spoke of it, so it had to be mine!
How did you find its fragrance?
If I ever step forward and organize a blind test project, I will sample this Oud and other plus 1000 $ Ceylon oils. Aroma, longevity, feel, dry-down, texture, colour. Everything is perfect in Sri Pada.
I have organized a separate stash, and asked my brother to decant different oils in sample vials and place them in the new box. No tagging at all. Now I enjoy my day, and especially when I request my friends to sniff and comments. It's eye-opening.
To me, it is just deep. Nothing else. Not uplifting, but like one stuck in a whirlpool and that drags one down to some abyss, excruciatingly fragrant depth.It's sweet, delicate, yet strong. Calming, an uplifting scent for sure, not too 'deep' but just like Goldilocks....juuuuust right
Oud Hud~Ensar Oud, unreleased Hindi from Karbi Anglong.