Back again with agarwoodindonesia. It’s being a while I don’t write again. Well let’s discuss about Indonesian Agarwood Scent.
We start from the most west of Indonesia Which is Sumatra. Why there? since Indonesia is a large archipelago country that each and one of it’s Islands are having special features of micro climate and surely it will effect agarwood produced in several area. As for Sumatra their smell is floral, sweet, sometimes fecal, and in some part had urine smell on the wood. But on Bangka Island the urine stuff disappear only sweet and nice smell you will found there. Next Kalimantan, this island is the one of the largest Island on earth it has several geographical features which is dense rain forest, large rivers also mountains. What make it related to Oudh smell? Well the oud from A. Malaccensis grown in East Kalimantan and South and other parts of Kalimantan are having different smell, Since the east and western are mostly rian forest their oud mostly smell sweet floral with lesser or no spicy note , on the contray the central and the saouth that is predominantly filled with swamps and bogs also mangrove had that spicy note when you burn the wood or distilling the oil. Now jump the Wallacean line we landed in Sulawesi, why Sulawesi is distinctive ? according to Wallace Indonesian Bio Diversity can be divided into 3 regions, The west region that include Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan also Bali. This is important since Sulawesi had in between life form between the Asian and Australian region. Here the agarwood predominantly are malaccensis mix with grynops, which having a mix smell between western and eastern part of Indonesia, Sweet yet with herbal and spice note. Now let’s discuss the Papuan or the eastern part of Indonesia, they have very distinctive scent, which are herbal and spicy sometimes with dirt smell, since on this region the agarwood species that produce agarwood came from A. Fillaria and Grynops. And about the dirt smell this because it is taken from a buried dead tree under the swamp area, so by time it will leave that dirt note on the wood when you burn it.
I think that’s all I can share you for now.
People are mislead by the word “wood” in agarwood. And thinking that all agarwood
must be wood chip. This is not 100% correct and not
100% wrong. Agarwood is an effect on fungal infection, the agarwood
tree produce resin to repel the boarders. The severe the infection the
more resin produced.
In Indonesia the end product of agarwood were classified into 3 major
class:
1. Gubal
What is gubal?
Gubal is the full resin of agarwood wich contain the whole resin with
few or 0 wood fiber. This is very high in price, a professor that is my
friend told me that his colleague sold it for 150 Million rupiah a
Kilo equal to US$14K++ to a Kuwaiti guy. So if somebody try to
blackmail you with selling wood chips with very few resin( You can see
it people!) and charge you US$3K/kilo just say to him/her: “Forget
it!” or
advertising they made oil out of US$3K wood chip, just leave him/ her.
Gubal shaped in several kinds:
-Stick (this is not real stick people, it’s just long shaped resemble
to stick )
-Fin
-Ball
The oudor is super strong even you imprison this baby in a sealed
carton box with strapped duct tape you can still smell it.
Another thing people this gubal if it’s AAA class if you put it inside a jar that contains water, it will surely sink.
Further more this Gubal will be brown , dark brown or pitch black. It will be in form of crystalized form of resin if it was AAA resin.
Gonystylus Bancanus Gubal
2.Kemedangan
Known to be incese grade agarwood, it’s in form of both wood and resin.
Huh? Wood and resin? How I ever differ the Kemedangan resin and Gubal
resin?
Hold your horses here.
Let’s talk about the wood 1st.
Agarwood wood chip will had brownish or black color from infections
(sometimes white but this is a very rare one)wich indicates it had
resin in it. This ranged from several US$ to several hundred US$/Kilo.
Medang Class Wood Chip
Now gidde up!!
Let’s talk about the medang resin, only to trained eye and nose can
differ gubal and medang. What? that hard?
No not that hard actually , kemedangan especially the AB class is a
little lighter in color and lesser oudor and another sign that a resin
is from kemedangan class that it breaks. Unlike the gubal that is
united into a one clump. Kemedangan tends to break and fragile. This
can be arround several hundred US$-several thousand.
Medang Class Resin AB Quality
3. Abu Gaharu (Agarwood Dust)
When you process the wood by splitting the infected wood and non infected wood you got the agarwood ash or the agarwood dust.These dust usually use as incese people! that sold in Ebay or many other sites. This is the lowest grade. Since this is by product. But don’t get mistaken if the seller process wood
with gubal class in it, you get gubal class dust and when they process medang class from the wood you get medang ash. So the price may vary.
Ok People thanks for your attention.
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