Someone I had an e-mail conversation with recently, wondered whether there was a lot of cultivated Oud coming on to the market. Obviously, this would put a dampener on any wild Oud price increase to a certain extent. However, my opinion - rightly or wrongly - is as follows, which is basically my e-mail reply to the point raised about cultivated Oud oil:
Your point about the plantation trees is factually correct, but the question remains of whether firstly, the producers can remain patient to allow the trees to mature to a level where the Oud produced is of the same quality as the wild Oud - I think that demand and economic necessity will combine to prevent this on a large scale - and also how many producers are willing to go down the organic route, again, not many. Christopher confirm this as he told me that he had some small quantities of organically cultivated oil which was maturing - but this would take around 4-5 years. Now Christopher has been involved in the trade for 15 - 20 years and if he has not prepared for the change then I do not hold much hope out for other less scrupulous producers to be better. I actually felt like begging him to let me have at least 100ml of the oil and let me mature it :0), but I didn't want to push him. I am sure that he would sell given the right financial incentive. He actually invited me to go to Laos and pick up scraps of remaining wood in the jungle for a low quantity distillation, but the wood for large amounts is gone. Christopher rates current wild wood oil 2 out of 10... he wrote the following to me a few days back:
In my opinion the wild oud is not the best quality. You c'ant compaer it wiht 20 years ago.
The oud is from wild trees and natural infection, as told about 1 to 5 years maximum infectet. the infection naturaly is much slower then in plantations.
The maturing is 15 days to 1 month.
In a scale of 10 I will give 20 years ago the quality of wood a 10 , 10 years ago a 8, today a 2. Not good quality anymore.
However, in my phone conversation with him, he indicated that in a few years time, cultivated wood oil may be close - but not as good as - the older wild wood. For perfectionists like me, that is bad news!
This explains why Ensar has been conducting 'experiments' that yield small amounts of expensive oil... small amounts, because there is not much wood to be had and the wood is expensive for the same reason, i.e. that it is in short supply!