Jaya

To the question “I love all your ouds, but… which one do you wear?” I might give a different answer each day of the week. Oud is just so mind-bogglingly rich and varied, it’d be a crime to choose just one.

But if there ever was a International Oud Awards and you’re asked to choose not just the oud you subjectively find the most pleasing, or which is the longest lasting, furthest projecting, the sweetest or most bitter, most medicinal or jammy – if there’s an oud to represent all OUD, one that’s in any many ways the oudiest of ouds, a feat of distillation that bottled a rare and peerless blast of agarwood resin you could explore until your nose is numb… well – Jaya would easily be a finalist.

The “How the…??” factor in Jaya is top of the chart. Every time I inhale its elemental green, its uncut aboriginal incense that’s more herbaceous than patchouli and earthier than khus, that piercing green minti-floral dart that goes right up your head; it’s a smell that could ruin you; spoil your nose because there’s just isn’t other oud like it.

If someone watched a documentary on agarwood but hasn’t ever smelled oud, Jaya’s is probably the scent that forms your mind’s eye. Scenes of moist tracks leading into towering jungles, dew dangling from the tips of the leaves, green drizzle and earthen black brown everywhere.

The narrator tries to explain how oud captures the soul of the forest, the scent of vegetative sappy moss that’s garden fresh, and that word – “woody”…

This is Jaya.

If you love Sri Lankan Walla Patta gyrinops for their aquatic cooling blue, this oud lets you step out of the ocean and trek deep into the heart of a New Guinea forest where you’re overwhelmed with a thousand smells that come together and spell J a y a. 

The peppery bite of musk draped over a bed of wet flowers poured into a brew of puerh, all of it drenched in Jaya’s rainforest fizz. And you can’t help but notice a subtle, irresistible medicinal tinge courtesy of the incense-grade live gyrinops and filarias this artisanal oud was distilled from. 

There are ouds you marvel at because of how unique they are; how unexpected and far-out their profiles are compared to even other rare agarwood specimens. Jaya is one of those gems. 

There are ouds you simply must smell in your life to truly appreciate how green vines line the rabbit hole and Jayapuran incense wafts from… everywhere. Jaya takes you there.

There are ouds you’d start swiping just to learn more about this olfactory miracle and then, before you know it, you’re bathing in it because that primal herbafloral jungle-green soulful scent of the forest activates something primordial in your nerves and you don’t want to stop sniffing. I’m talking from experience – don’t be surprised when Jaya gets you, too! Go on. Walk into the woods.