Oud Info
Agarwood: A Reality Check
Jul
There’s a massive discrepancy staring you right in the face.
On the one hand, you’ve got gallons upon gallons of oud oil coming out of China and Taiwan. On the other hand, there’s not a splinter of wood in sight.
As supply is at an all-time low, the price of quality raw agarwood keeps going up. And forget new wood – I’m talking about the reseller’s market here. We’re talking second-hand, vintage harvests, not fresh ones from the forest. These are batches obtained from people selling their collections from decades ago, often assets their grandfathers and grandmothers originally bought and stowed away.
The highest caliber wood has been consumed slowly but surely over the last decade as less and less new harvests emerged, and the price has only gone up as demand has gone through the roof.
Yet, oud oil gets pumped out by the liter – and only gets cheaper. How do you explain that?
If good agarwood is everywhere, why do Chinese brokers save no expense obtaining every piece they can find?
And if the Chinese themselves are producing gallons of oud, why do they chase raw agarwood so fiercely in the first place?
(And why are they now asking us for our wood?)
Here’s a good way to get a reality check: Ask the people who produce all those oud oils about their wood. When they offer you Nha Trang oil, simply tell them you want proper wild Nha Trang wood – how much?Â
See what they quote you and let me know. And ask yourself: If that’s the cost per gram, then what on Earth are those oils distilled from?
Hello,
I’d like to thank you for welcoming us into your world. Thank you for educating us, warning us and looking after us.
Indeed the how has popped in my mind here and there. How are these European companies promising us aromatic romance from beyond the Orient?! When the forests are deserts.
Soon I conclude, it’s either another chapter from the play of: Smoke & Mirrors. Starring: Givaudan, supported by Firmenich.
…or…
Truckloads of snake oil – the ultimate heavenly cure – repackaged as Duhn Oudh Safi.
Are people desensitized to trickery. Are they pleased with the Pinocchios feeding them what they like to hear. No more!
After awakening from the “Matrix” of this industry..I put myself in EO solitude. Prescribed to myself rounds of Kinam therapy. I’m a fragrant drifter, an olfactory nomad.
Blessings to you all.
Assalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh
So this article is quiet interesting, I have been thinking about this for a while now. I have recently gone in to learning perfumery and currently a year left till i graduate.
I have made and bought oud, ones I purchased from Dubai extremely expensive especially it was aged Oud.