Take the most resinated organic agarwood money can buy, grind it up into dust, juice it up into oil, and what do you get? Japanese incense, in a bottle!
Incense grade agarwood is used exactly for that – incense. Not oil. Unless you’re Ensar…
“Why? You will lose money,” the distiller repeated once again, trying to make sense of what Ensar was proposing.
Trying to persuade the wood brokers and the distiller that this production would be unmatched by anything they’d ever done was a futile endeavor. They were just too taken aback by this kind of request; using incense grade wood to make oil. One thing was clear: there wasn’t going to be any shared risk in this experiment. If there was loss, it would fall squarely on us. So we had to buy the wood upfront as when buying oud chips for burning, after which we could do with it as we pleased.
After spending half the day selecting the organic incense grade pieces fit for the distillation we had in mind, we ended up getting 5-kg of the most densely resinated chips available. But instead of going home and smoking up some shavings on the burner, we walked straight to the grinder.
The rarity and cost of these incense grade chips meant we had to take special care grinding them into fine dust, making sure we gathered every last speck.
Once ground up, we headed for the stills, giving soaking a miss. Instead we decided on a copper pot, without any condensers whatsoever, boiling at a slightly higher temperature than usual, in which we poured the dust to start cooking right away.
As we came in to pour the freshly ground dust into the still, we were greeted by the most ‘fecalicious’ aroma imaginable, emitted by the 20 year-old organic tree we’d harvested the previous day (to be released soon).
After five days cooking, we collected the first batch of Thai Encens, of which the overall yield was very low. Only two tolas, to be exact!
Ensar’s Impressions:
First batch:
Think of an extremely rich dish which is so filling you are satisfied with a few spoonfuls. Or a dessert which is gorgeously delicious, yet when you finish eating it you are perfectly satisfied without the uncontrollable crave to stuff yourself further. That is Thai Encens. The most fulfilling Oud, in every respect, I have ever laid my nostrils on.
Every Oud, Kyara Koutan included, leaves you wanting for something more. Not so the Encens. Its incense-y, green Kyara note is extremely voluptuous and overwhelmingly energetic. It has a certain electricity to it, it almost pulsates. It is ALIVE. It has the strongest spiritual pull of any oil I have smelled.
Indeed, the oil is still fresh off the still, and the notes are changing daily, but one thing is for sure, its green note is crisper and cleaner than any of my previous Kyaras. I smelled the pyrex again last night, and I was greeted by an unexpected Japanese green tea note admixed in that unearthliness. It totally blissed me out!
It turned out so surprisingly crystal clear (sencha green top note permeated with a Kyara etherealness) in such a short time; I can’t begin to imagine what transcendence it will resonate in a year or two!
Second batch:
Ever tried Ambre Sultan by Serge Lutens? I’m sorry to refer to a banal designer scent, but it’s the only thing that comes to mind as I smell the second juicing of Thai Encens No 1.
In the Oud Yusha / Encens d’Angkor equation this would be the equivalent of the Encen d’Angkor, while the first yield would be the fruitier Oud Yusha equivalent.
Employing similar distillation techniques, we were able to get 3 quarter tola bottles (3 grams each) of a very dark Thai Encens No 1, which smells EXACTLY like Ambre Sultan; only, it’s 100% pure oud oil!
After All’s Said and Done:
“So, was it worth it?” everyone asked after we finished filtering the oil, seeing how little oil we ended up with.
It was a laugh for the distiller to see me put down a thick wad of hard cash and end up with two tolas of oil. But I would do it again! The dried aquilaria would have otherwise kept its secret dormant, passing away in a cloud of smoke, without anyone ever getting to taste its true greatness; its grandeur.
Q: “Ensar, having now the benefit of experience of several distillations from incense-grade wood, do you still think it’s worth the risk and do you plan on doing any more? The cost is much higher and because the wood is so resinated, yields are modest. Of course, the resulting oils can be spectacular, but even the ‘mad scientist’ in you surely knows that this is not just a hobby.”
A: “You must’ve mistaken ‘madman at the stills’ for ‘mad scientist’. This is not a question of risk, it is guaranteed ‘kaatun!’ (Th. ‘lost money’) as everyone here keeps shouting at me daily, in response to my requests and ideas.
Just to give you an illustration: We recently acquired some wood chips from a 100 year-old tree which are now selling (out) at $20 per gram. A good 4 kilograms of the chips we ground up for the Khao Yai oil were all but identical to these 100 year-old chips in both appearance and fragrance. From a retail perspective, 4 kg x $20K = $80,000 gross. With the 5 tolas of Khao Yai oil we’ve collected thus far, we’re looking at $4,000 a bottle to come anywhere near the price the chips would have commanded. Now add 10 kg of organic incense grade chips that could have sold for $3 a gram, which we added to the distillation to meet the still requirement; what does that indicate for the price of the oil?
In short, this is definitely my last wild incense grade distillation.”
Khao Yai’s Beginning:
Singled out as the guy who produces artisanal oud oil from incense grade, wild harvested agarwood, Ensar recently called it quits on doing any more such wild distillations after a trip to Singapore where he learnt that the last remaining oud jungles are being carelessly wiped off the map at an incredible rate.
Instead, he started making inroads into the organic agarwood cultivation scene, with the intention to produce organic oud exclusively. His first stop was Cambodia, then Thailand. Since then, the local oud producers still don’t know what hit them.
Despite the overwhelming response to Oud Yusha and Encens d’Angkor (Ensar’s first releases since his shift to organic oud production), we’ve received many emails and phone calls with concerned voices: does the end of wild oud mean the end of quality, artisanal oud oil?
The Experiment:
Unless you come here (the Far East) and try to find it yourself, you don’t fully realize just how precious wild agarwood is.
Initially, we sourced two batches of purported wild wood. The first 4 kg batch was pure jungle wood, for sure. But the second batch gave Ensar doubts, which led him to have it evaluated and checked by several local experts. As it turned out, the second batch was indeed cultivated.
Given the 10-15 kg minimum required to fill one still, it was simply impossible to source exclusively jungle wood for this experiment. By pure jungle wood, I mean incense grade wild wood.
So, this experiment ended up being a co-extraction of super fine wild incense grade Khao Yai chips & the highest grade organic chips.
Later that evening…
To the Grinder:
With exceptionally resinated incense grade chips like these, the total yield depends a lot on how fine you can grind them up…
…so we ground them twice!
To Soak or Not to Soak:
It does help, but having the finest batch of wood doesn’t mean you’ll get the finest oil. The distillation process is where true craft comes in.
After grinding the chips to fine dust, it’s decision time: to soak or not to soak?
Soaking (marinating the dust in mineral water) is done for two reasons. To soften the resin so as to facilitate extraction, leading to more yield; and to improve / modify / tweak the fragrance of the oil. In India, it’s standard practice to soak the wood prior to distillation for at least 25 days. We’ve seen wood that was submerged in water for over two months.
In the Hindi tradition, not to soak is foolish and wasteful, as soaking is seen to lead to higher yield – everything else being equal, such as cooking time, labor, amount of gas / firewood expended, etc. In Cambodia, soaking is not done to facilitate yield, as the distiller will simply keep cooking each batch until every last drop of resin comes out. All soaking does is help accomplish this quicker, hence more economically.
Is it superior not to soak the wood? Depends on who you ask. Each batch of raw materials is different. Some might benefit from soaking while others might suffer from it. Careful supervision and expertise is key. One batch might acquire a complexity it would have otherwise altogether lacked if cooked unsoaked; while another might lose all vibrancy and color, top and heart notes muted to give way to a boring barny base.
We wish it were possible to ‘sample’ the oil obtainable from different soaking periods, as well as in combination with different stills & condensers prior to making the final call for each batch. Unfortunately, hydrodistillation pots usually require a minimum of 15-20 kg raw materials in order to do any distilling at all, so the final decision goes back to the distiller’s experience with the different types of wood, soaking periods, types of still, condenser, cooking temperature, etc.
The soaking time can be decided on beforehand, but another way to go about it is to check the dust daily, monitoring the scent development. With artisanal productions like this, precision is key, since the entire process depends on making the call on when to stop soaking at the right time. Knowing when it’s the right time takes a great deal of experience, and a clear vision of what one wants in the oil.
Into the Still:
The soaking period for our 14-kg batch of wild Khao Yai oud wood came to thirteen days. Next came the cooking, for which we selected a copper pot that’ll be boiling for ten days.
Initially, the thought crossed our minds to collect water from another farm in which to cook the dust, but with this kind of wood it would have been foolish to use anything other than the soaking water from the barrel itself.
After pouring the the dust into the still, we experienced the first drops of oil within the next few hours. Based on the scent exuded by the soaked shavings, we expected notes of dark fruits, dark woods, and incense.
Collecting the First Drops of Oil:
When we went to collect the first yield, we were astonished to find how the amount of oil, as well as its color compared to the regular distillations that were started at the exact same time.
Our first taste of Oud Khao Yai:
Once collected, some of the oil actually sank in the water in the shape of a bulb, and we couldn’t get it to float to the top of the water. This made the filtering especially tricky.
Ensar’s Impressions:
First day:
I’ve been so busy today with separating the oil from water, and then doing lots of different things with different distillers, that I’ve barely had the chance to sit with the oil and introduce myself.
For now, it’s the greenness of kyara transmuted to the clarity of pure mint which you inhale and keep inhaling and keep inhaling and keep inhaling without reaching the bottom of the scent; or should I say top?
It is pure sky; an opening from above that makes the head feel light. And it never turns to a ‘woody’ dry down, it just maintains its mint-kyara green from first note to last. That’s the most amazing thing about it. Don’t mistake the green of Khao Yai with any of the other oils’ green you’ve smelled. It is an airy note that is more ethereal than air itself. It is a lightness untainted by physical traces of earth, wood, or the minerals of water. Even the color of the oil is the most translucent green. You can see through the oil as if looking through a light green-tainted glass. It is transparent.
Second day:
An oud oil that smells just like the fresh blue lotus flowers! It’s as if everything is interconnected in this climate, and the zest of their cuisine is also found in the agarwood oil which is produced here, which in turn is affected by the mineral content of the water the wood is soaked in prior to distillation. Either I’m going crazy, or I smell fresh blue lotus flowers in the oil…
I went to sleep with a swipe of it on the back of my hand, which at that time smelled like the blue lotus flower (soft, delicate, ethereal, with the faintest hint of buttery-earthiness permeating it); and when I woke up and revisited it, it smelled of the agarwood resin as it burns, devoid of any smoke, wood, the pure eternality of gently heated gaharu; Cambodian/Thai origin; spicy green with a subtle dark fruits undertone.
Fifth day:
Just collected the fifth day’s yield of Khao Yai, which is slowly coming to a halt. The filtering is really driving me insane. I’ve never experienced this much stress filtering an oil. It’s so costly, which is why I need to be ultra careful about wasting any, but that also means proper filtering is really difficult to pull off. I have a bottle with dust and water drops inside which I don’t know what I’m going to do with, apart from just putting it in the morning sun tomorrow, hoping everything will evaporate apart from what’s supposed to be there. That’ll probably end up being the bottle I set aside for personal use.
The oil is surprisingly soft and understated; the subtle delicateness of lotus, and its elusive airiness. Khao Yai is so delicate, so lithe, soft and polite it’s like bottled propriety and delicateness. Blue lotus is the only thing it reminds me of; the mint I was getting before is now barely detectable. Maybe the faintest breath of white rose peering through, but you have to look for it in order to find it. It’s like bottled blue air, blue waters, blue clouds, blue lotus, blue. Understated is the way to describe it. And blue.
Eighth Day:
I now have the entire yield from the first batch in front of me, which came to five full tolas; as well as the first few grams of oil from the second batch. I have a swipe from the first batch on the inside of my wrist; and one from the second batch on the back of my hand. The differences are stark, yet the ‘familial tie’ between the two oils is obvious, unlike the two batches of Thai Encens, which were complete strangers, and will not settle their differences to this day…
First batch:
This is a lithe, bluish substance that is very bright and energetic. Top notes of guava, subtle pear and the tart fruitiness of blueberries complement each other atop the buttery ether that is the heart of the blue lotus flower. If mint was colored blue, it would smell like this. No kyara green notes, no incense notes; just an uncanny spirited substance that is so delicate yet so alive and ethereal I cannot call it an oud oil in the ‘vulgar’ sense of the term (thick opaque liquid that stays close to the skin and smells like wood or leather or animal). It is a pea-green liquid as transparent as glass. This is what you’d call ‘one of the precious extracts’. I see this oil in the collections of high class perfumery aficionados who adore any and all precious aromatics rather than the ‘stashes’ of agarwood oil bottled up for daily application by wearers of oud.
Second batch:
I once had a miniscule amount of antiquated wild Cambodian oud a distiller gave me from his private archives. Here is a worthy heir of that oil. A resinous yet light, incense-y yet grounded oud that is neither fruity nor floral but rather redolent of the resin crystals that coat high grade Cambodian oud chips. The swipe I applied was sticky, and given the fragrance I’m getting I speculate some of the actual resin crystals are finally starting to make their appearance in the oil. Rather than blue, this smells green-yellow; the scent of honeyed lemon, devoid of citrus and radiating instead in fine gaharu smoke. This is the oud lover’s dream come true. A resinous, incense-y Cambodi that smells ancient fresh from the still. I salivate thinking what this will smell like in two years.
A Final Word:
Aside from the clearly refined fragrance already present, this is the kind of oil you get, try, and put away for years to come; when you’ll truly appreciate what these moments meant.
The Khao Yai Experiment is an unprecedented, historic distillation. Since the oil is still fresh from the still, it’s difficult to make any conclusive remarks just yet. These are my impressions so far. Get a bottle, and draw your own.
Note: We’ve set aside a few chips from the wild incense grade Khao Yai wood that went into the still. Each order will receive a free chip, while supplies last. This is to give you an idea exactly why this oil costs this much, and what you can expect from the oils once it’s fully mature.
Why there’s even five bottles left, I don’t know. Oud Nuh is cherished across the board – by those who aren’t into Indian Oud, as well as those who swear by nothing besides.
“Oud Nuh hums its own song of songs – a vibrant contemplation pulsating with a life and mystery unique to itself. Oud of the Moghuls, Nuh is the Oud of royalty.”
Crafted: May 2009. Almost three full years natural aging in carefully sealed, air-tight German Pyrex. Fully protected from air and from light. No sunning, no lamping, no airing. No force-aging at play, ever.
“Nuh is an elegant, young dignitary – composed and graceful, lithe yet stately. His confidence commands respect; his easy manner veils a gentle strength. Nuh is oil that will appeal to those who enjoy the lustiness of Hindi oils in a more muted and docile guise.”
This oil is yours to delve deeper and deeper into, and grow old with. It’s a bottle many will keep aside for later years just because of what it is; what others will never be. Oud Nuh is the noblest Assam Oud we’ve put our label on.
“A wisp of scintillating, ethereal lightness and the succulent sweetness of juicy, wild plums balance and beautify the anamalic, primordial vigor of Oud Nuh – a luscious, vibrant and magisterial oil hailing from the jungles of Assam.”
Collecting and filtering the oil from our 20 year old organic agarwood tree, which rounded off a month-long production process, I couldn’t help but be moved by the grandeur of it all.
When we just harvested this tree, I picked up a chunk of wood that smelled extremely fecal, or like some nicely aged cheese. I even said in one of the videos below that I encountered a ‘fecalicious’ scent when entering the distillery where the wood was drying atop the cookers, prior to grinding.
Yet now that I’ve collected the oil, I got the very greenest scent I’ve ever smelled in any oud. It’s almost too green. We might have been looking forward to some barnyard Thai oil, given the firsthand encounter with the super fecal smell direct from the still moist tree. But post soaking and distillation I got the greenest smell imaginable. How did that happen? The type of groundwater used for soaking the wood, and then the stainless steel stills. Would I have ended up with an aged cheese smell had I used steam extraction? Most probably! Would I go back and use steam if I could? Nope!
Most distillers cannot go into the nitty gritty of different material ducts and tubes. I only know of one guy who built and rebuilt his entire distillation systems three times within one year because the smell of the oil was not what he was looking for. As you can see in various pictures, hydro distillation stills are cemented in place, and it is not possible to change anything once they’re built.
Stay tuned for more posts about just how the nitty gritty details of the distillation process affected this special production.
Just collected the oil from our twenty-year organic aquilaria crassna tree harvested last month in Thailand, after seven days soaking and four days hydro-distillation…
So far as I know, there are only three distillation methods for oud oil: steam, hydro and CO2 extraction. The latter is seldom used save in low quality cultivated oud. The results are far from impressive, with a pasty, sticky, solid at room temperature wax as the end product. The scent is impaired by the extraction of non-resin particles along with the agarwood essence.
Steam distillation is widely used in Indonesia. I am unsure about the benefits of using steam, considering that normally the oil is subjected to temperatures above 300 degrees centigrade. Some of my distillers harbor an intense dislike for steam distillation when it comes to oud. Yet Borneo 3000, Borneo Kinam, Kyara Koutan, and so forth were all steam distilled. Given the controversy I’ve found among distillers regarding steam, I do not plan on employing this extraction method from here onwards.
Then we have classic hydro distillation. Simple chemistry: you boil the wood and the resin rises to the top; from there you funnel it into a glass vessel where it gathers over the course of several days, floating atop the water. This is the oldest, most widely used method in Southeast Asia and Assam. The original Oud Royale, Oud Mostafa, Thai Encens (1 and 2), and other oils were extracted via this method.
This is where distillation can get real high tech, with different material tubes for different steps of the process…. You can have, for example, a stainless steel boiler with copper tubes that the oil travels through; or a fully stainless unit; or a fully copper one; or a copper still with stainless tubes; or different material tubes for different parts of the process, such as the water traveling through copper and the oil through steel; or vice versa. The possibilities are endless.
With steam distillation, all you get is agarwood oil that was heated up to a certain temperature and then separated from the condensed steam, with the resultant oil potentially impaired due to the high temperature. In hydro distillation, the raw materials are in close contact with water for a period of several days. The water has an almost magical effect on the oil, changing its character dramatically depending on how long it stays immersed, what type of water it is boiled in, the chemical breakdown of the water itself, salt and mineral content, etc.
Believe it or not, whether you get a fecal, a fruity or a woody, a dark or a light, a leathery or a green smelling oud oil all depends on the water you use to cook the raw materials!
Stay tuned for more posts about just how the choice of water, pots, and other details of the distillation process affected this special production.
Tupelo honey-laced strawberry jam, and purple bubble gum. Figs, plums and nectarines. Ensar recently launched his most fruitilicious Cambodi to date: Oud Yusha.
Oud Yusha is definitive proof that organically cultivated agarwood can yield amazing quality Oud oil. When produced artisanally, that is.
Anyone can order Oud directly from a distiller. Just like anyone can order a Monet directly from the printers. You’re getting a picture on paper, sure. Just like you’re getting oil in a bottle. But you know the difference.
So, what do we mean by ‘produced artisanally’?
Put a swipe of Oud Yusha on the inside of your left wrist. Now swipe your right wrist with Encens d’Angkor. What you’re about to embark on is an olfactory journey through ages of perfecting the craft of Oud distillation.
If you think the scent of an oil depends only on the raw materials, think again. Oud Yusha and Encens d’Angkor were distilled from the same batch of wood. In the same distillery. Yet, the aromatic contrast couldn’t be more stark.
In preparation for distillation, the wood for the one was soaked in a certain way for a set time. The other was soaked less. The one was then distilled in copper vessels; the other in stainless steel. And so we could go on. Many, many unique tweaks and techniques were employed to create these two markedly different scents from the same raw materials.
Don’t think experimenting with distillation techniques is something just anyone can do in their spare time. Some of the oils take months to produce, costing you a pretty penny. And it can all easily go horribly wrong.
The finest wild agarwood in the hands of a novice will yield mediocre oil. The finest organic agarwood in the hands of a ‘mad scientist’ artisan will yield… Encens d’Angkor!
We rocked the boat so much with Encens d’Angkor that we could have easily gotten away with promoting it as something other than the pure bred Cambodi it is. But a trained nose will pick up its Cambodi pulse, and will delight in its unusual beat.
Dark top notes of cosy countryside cottage wooden floors, warmed by a flickering fireplace; a morning walk where fresh air reveals green flavors of guava, amberous patchouli, oakmossed-out sandalwood, pregnant with the ever present figs and blackberries, shrouded in a deep shade of incense and woods.
All proceeds from your purchase will go right back into the stills, helping to support sustainable agarwood cultivation, taking organic Oud to the next level.
‘I’m a struggling college student and my only pleasure in life are your wonderful oud oils. The only thing I spend money on is the bare essentials, to eat and buy oud. If I spend what you’re asking for the Mostafa I won’t have enough money to feed myself for the rest of the month and I don’t plan on fasting anytime soon.
Oud really helps me get through the tough hardships this life throws at me everyday. This is why I spend the type of money I do on your oud, because it helps me survive and it’s worth more than money to me. It’s not just a luxury item for me, it’s a necessity of life.
God and oud are the reason I’m still breathing today and decide to continue to endure the chastisement I face from this cruel world. Not only is oud a wonderful godly fragrance but it can become a powerful weapon when blessed by an anointed person of God to combat the forces of evil in this world. And nothing is like a blessed Assam oud.
This is just the beginning of what this sacred oil really means to me. It’s amazing how many people don’t know how powerful this oil really is except a very select few, and you’re one of them Ensar.
I can go on all day about my spiritual journey and how I came to know about these blessed oils from God but this is just something I only share with a very few people I know can understand. People of God!’
In classic perfumery, they’re known as the four ‘exalting fixatives.’ And they’re all animal aromatics: deer musk from the Himalayan muskdeer, ambergris from the sperm whale, castoreum from the male beaver, and civet from the civet cat.
Foul and strange in high concentrations, these are the most heavenly aromatic substances on the perfumer’s palette – without which there would be no perfume.
Each of these has a unique appeal. For example, deer musk is at heart a sensual fragrance. In the wild, the musk gland of the deer is responsible for rousing a mating partner. Once extracted and distilled, the aroma of musk acts as an aphrodisiac. Its reality is one of attraction.
The world of perfume is a strange and wonderful place. And in this world, nothing quite compares to Oud oil; in its complexity, its variety, its sheer other-worldliness.
As a fragrance, Oud is a landscape in which you’ll find something of everything – from civet cats to rose petals, from patchouli to violets, farmlands to lilies, from figs to forest leaves, from raspberries and honey to leather to lavender. Oud is a microcosm of everything fragrant.
Whereas all essential oils are derived from an inherent quality present in a particular leaf or flower, Oud is something even more wondrous.
Oud oil is only given life by the event of dying. The agarwood tree is infected by a fungal disease, in reaction to which the tree produces a self-generated cure – the resin we know as Oud oil. The reality of Oud, then, is a struggle for life.
With an understanding of this almost sacrificial ceremony through which Oud oil is brought into existence, we should carefully consider how we conduct ourselves when harvesting this sacred tree. We believe that the spirit of the oil can only be captured when the tree is treated with due respect. In practice, this in part means not to harvest any of the last wild trees that remain standing in the jungles; to harvest cultivated trees only when fully infected and already moribund; grown in a natural habitat, safe from hands that spray the earth.
Compare the sight of a three, five, seven, or ten year old agarwood sapling to that of the majesty you see in a forty, fifty, seventy year old tree. What a difference!
Follow our video updates and help play a part in preserving Oud by supporting organic agarwood cultivation.
Part 1: Is organic Oud really organic?
Part 2: Finding a tree fit for harvest.
Part 3: Finding a tree fit for harvest, continued.
Part 4: Why the future of Oud depends on what we do now.
Thick spread of fig jam, plums and nectarines.
And raw tupelo honey.
A resinous amber undercurrent.
The precious woods dry down makes you tingle.
Copper distilled, almost two years ago.
No chemical fertilizers.
No pesticides.
Just some chicken droppings and rain water.
Cambodi addicts beware!
There are moments it smells so fruity it reminds me of the purple bubble gum we used to chew in junior high school. Or rosy lipstick. Or strawberry jam. Or cola.
When produced artisanally, organically cultivated Oud opens a whole new range of premium grade Oud oils. Get the quality of Ensar Oud, uncompromised, with Ensar himself at the distillation pots, at a price that gives wild Oud a chance to run for its life.
Order Oud Yusha! You not only help preserve wild agarwood trees, you help take organic Oud to the next level! All proceeds from your purchase will go right back into the stills. Not to mention, you get to be one of the first to own Ensar’s fruitiest Cambodi yet.
Once ground up, we headed for the stills, giving soaking a miss. Instead we decided on a copper pot, without any condensers whatsoever, boiling at a slightly higher temperature than usual, in which we poured the dust to start cooking right away.
