Black Magic Wood

In Oud or agarwood world there are so many riddle to the people outside that world. Including the agarwood quality that named as the ” Black Magic Wood.” From the name itself it give me a goosebump. But let’s talk about it seriously. Black Magic Wood is an artificial agarwood. Made from agarwood itself or other kinds of wood like Paraserianthes falcataria wood or it can be made from Jack Fruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus or Artocarpus heterophylla) tree wood and other kinds of wood. The shape that is use for this is Papuan agarwood ( A.Fillaria) since to make A. Malaccensis BMW is quite difficult since the wood is too soft to be make as BMW.

The characteristic between artificial and natural oud or agarwood is quite different, but for the outsiders who is outside Indonesia they are not aware of this. They only judge by the strong smell. Black magic wood can be a lot stronger then common natural oud or agarwood since we can trim the note up beyond natural harvested oud or agarwood.

Also some BMW when we burn it, it will show a characteristic same like real natural harvested oud or agarwood. Such as bubbling, emits oil and emits resin.

The reason of the existance of this BMW is economical reason. Since real genuine agarwood or oud is very high and expensive. Indonesian who produce this kind of wood usually stated that this is BMW or artificial agarwood not real oud. The price from the craftsman for the best BMw is 150US$-200US$. It will look the same, smells the same as real ones. These wood usually made as gift since buying oud for some people it’s not that comfortable. It’s way too expensive.

There is a trick to detect your oud or agarwood chip is BMW or natural oud, by breaking it and see it’s fiber. If the resin mark is too good to be true meaning evenly distributed you should suspect that is BMW. Since natural oud are mostly do not have evenly distributed resin in it. Except for super king grade which is very very expensive and. Can reach minimum 7000 USD/Kg in the Indonesian market alone.

In Arabia this kind of agarwood were called as Black Agarwood since mostly it’s black in it’s color.

So folks don’t worry about this kind a artificial agarwood as long as it’s still using natural resin and natural technique such as high pressure, this kind a wood wouldn’t harm you. But obtaining natural so called real agarwood is a better way. Thanks for reading.