Presentation of the Agar wood, also called Oud wood and its characteristics.
Agarwood, or Gaharu, as it is commonly called in many Asian countries, is a resinous wood from the heart of trees of the genus Aquilaria. The Aquilaria tree, a fast-growing subtropical forest species, is found in a wide area from the Himalayan foothills of South Asia through Southeast Asia to the tropical forests of Papua New Guinea. It thrives at altitudes ranging from a few meters above sea level to about 1000 meters, with an ideal altitude of about 500 meters.
Aquilaria can thrive on a variety of soil types, including poor sandy soils. Young plants require a lot of shade and water, but grow quickly, producing flowers and seeds by the age of four. At least fifteen species of Aquilaria are known to produce the highly prized agarwood. In South Asia, especially in India, we find the Aquilaria achalloga.
Aquilaria malaccensis is mainly found in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, while Aquilaria crassna grows mainly in Indochina. Other species, such as Aquilaria grandfolia and Aquilaria chinesis, are also known, although they are relatively less important for agarwood production.
Use of Agarwood
Known as the “wood of the gods”, agarwood has been traded and highly sought after for millennia. The resinous wood is used as incense, for medicinal applications, and the pure distilled resin is used as an essential oil and perfume ingredient.
Outside of its home countries, it is most popular in the Middle East, China, Taiwan and Japan. The use of agarwood is closely linked to religion and its healing properties, and elaborate traditional and religious ceremonies are practiced throughout the world.
Religious healers in the Middle East use it in healing ceremonies, Japanese pilgrims offer agarwood flowers and oil to Shinto-Buddhist temples, and Vietnamese religious groups are required to bring agarwood to ceremonies at their temples in Mekong Delta communities.
Essential oil of agarwood or Oud oil
Oud oil is one of the most famous and popular fragrance ingredients for consumers around the world. Its rich fragrance and exotic connotations have made it a symbol of oriental perfumes for centuries. But how many of us can say we know the process of extracting oud or how to best use it in creating fragrances?
Oud is one of the rarest and most precious raw materials used in perfumery. Indeed, oud is one of the most expensive ingredients used in contemporary perfumery, with a price tag that can exceed $50,000 for a kilogram of high quality oud oil. The global agarwood market is currently valued at over $12 billion and is growing steadily.
One of the major reasons for its high cost is its scarcity. The Aquilaria tree species is classified as Critically Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and CITES, with a population decline of over 80% in the last 150 years. Furthermore, it is estimated that only 7% of trees naturally produce agarwood.
When the trees are healthy, agarwood has a light or pale color, but when infected by disease, the infection process creates a response to the attack, resulting in a very dark and incredibly aromatic resin known as oleoresin. It is this rich dark resin that is so prized and from which the essential oil of agarwood is extracted.
In nature, this resin can take many years to produce and, like a fine wine, the older the resin gets, the more prized it becomes. Due to its enormous cost and extreme rarity in nature, the trees are now cultivated and the resin is actually created by artificial infection and its essential oil extracted by water distillation.
There are many grades of agarwood oil. The quality of the grade depends on the quality of the wood used and the duration of distillation. As a general rule, the longer the distillation time, the higher the content.
It costs hundreds for 5ml and oud oil is usually sold by weight. Because of its rarity and mythical status in almost all world religions, it is extremely expensive. The perfume is particularly sought after. It is believed to be the most powerful natural aphrodisiac.
Most of the oud oil from agarwood is purchased and consumed mainly by France, Saudi Arabia and Japan. There are no truly similar species or known sythetics that come close to the actual smell. The fungal infection that helps create the resin makes its extract very unique.
Adulteration can and does occur on many levels. In terms of raw materials, uninfected or inferior quality trees. Often it may even be a different but similar tree species. Even among infected trees, the method of infection (natural or stimulated) may have an effect on wood compounds.
At the level of distillation, the distiller can include the hydrolate with the essential oil or lie about the duration of distillation. At the distribution level, the oil is cut with other oils or synthetic chemicals are added to try to reproduce the smell.
Extinction of the Agarwood
Resin-producing agarwood trees are threatened in their known habitat throughout Southeast Asia. The main driving force behind this project was the recognition that the unsustainable harvesting of Aquilaria from natural forests has resulted in the near extinction of this type of tree in Thailand, Vietnam and elsewhere. Aquilaria crassna is now a protected species in Vietnam.
Restrictions on trade and harvesting will be virtually impossible to implement and enforce if no alternatives to logging are developed. In addition, in the short and long term, a natural resource base must be maintained to supply current and future Aquilaria plantations with germplasm to prevent plant extinction, maintain diversity, and potentially improve resin production.
Agarwood substitutes
The development of synthetic substitutes for agarwood generally occurs when sustainable supplies of the natural product are not available. One of the first questions asked during the pilot project review was, “Is it possible to synthesize agarwood and agarwood oil?” The answer is a qualified no. Agarwood cannot be synthesized. Chemical substitutes are already available for perfume; these are cheap and are the least profitable end of the market.
In addition, these products do not come close to mimicking the natural product and therefore do not pose a threat to the production of non-synthetic agarwood products. The main chemical components responsible for the characteristic odor of agarwood products, 15-carbon chain compounds called sesquiterpenes, can in principle be synthesized. However, these are very complicated structures that are extremely expensive to synthesize, making them commercially unattractive.
Interesting facts about Agarwood
- Religious texts were written on the bark of agar trees and Srimanta Sankardev referred to agar wood as one of the divine trees with the ability to satisfy human desire.
- Burning agarwood was called the “fragrance of Nirvana” by Lord Buddha.
- He is widely mentioned in the Sanskrit Vedas as a favorite of Lord Krishna.
- Agarwood has played an important role in many religious traditions around the world. It has been revered for millennia for its fragrance in religious ceremonies and its incense burned at the burial of Jesus Christ.
- King Louis XIV had his clothes washed with water scented with agarwood.
- The smoke of agarwood was used to perfume the armor of samurai warriors before going into battle.
- In Genesis, agarwood is mentioned as the only tree from which Adam and Eve could take cuttings.
- Although not widely known in the West, agarwood has a rich history of medicinal use in many cultures. It has been used for centuries by physicians in Tibet, India, China and the Arab world to treat a range of physical and mental conditions.