Face to Face with ‘Arabian’ Oud: Part 2

Ensar Oud

Well-Known Member
#1
Walking out from one perfume shop into the next, what I found in the Emirati malls and outdoor markets was that nothing had changed since my first visit there many years ago.

‘Thaqeel’ and ‘Kalakassi’ are household names in oud circles in both the East and the West. At $680 and $545 per quarter tola, respectively, these are two oils at the top of many an oud lover’s wishlist. A bit of an enigma, the Thaqeel in particular has become fabled as one of the must-have oud oils.

A few months ago, a guest came over with his bottle of Thaqeel (purchased from a Canadian vendor) eager to hear my thoughts on it. Coincidentally, the oil was a hot topic in online discussion forums at the time, and I didn’t hold back reporting how stunned I was to pick up an unmistakable note of synthetic musk in it. I was heavily reproached for my impressions, which some took to be borderline blasphemy.

This time, it at least smelled pure. Mediocre, but pure. When I asked the dealer where the oil was from, he said India. ‘Indian?’ I thought. The oil remained an enigma. Every time I smell it, it’s different. Way different. It was like the producers aren’t even trying to hide the fact that they sell different mixed batches under the fame of a single title.


The experience reminded me once more that there are two types of oud: the oud in the mind and the oud in the bottle.

How can you expect to find pure oud in a store which is just one in a chain of 200, 300, 400+ others?

How do you keep your display cases filled with dark and heavy agarwood chips, in each of these 200, 300, 400+ stores?

If you’re clueless about what’s happening on the agarwood scene, there’s nothing wrong with this picture. And that’s fine. We aren’t expected to know what goes on behind the scenes in everything we get involved in.

The Gulf perfume companies have never (as far as I know) been guilty of deliberate false marketing. In the Gulf, oud has to do with cultural identity and ritual. The companies are able to associate an entire market with a specific culture – oud is an Arab thing. Outwardly, they never make any explicit claims about what they’re offering. None of them advertise selling ‘pure essential oud oil’. They sell ‘oudh’, whatever that means.

The Gulf companies have been successful in creating their own market, and unsuccessful in educating that market. Just like French perfumery created the eau de toilette generation, with everyone versed in keywords like ‘musc’ and ‘amber’, with little knowledge about these ingredients. And that’s fine. Most people are fine with generic.

But you’ll always have puritans on the fringes who need to get to the roots of things. Apart from the price tag, Thaqeel makes no promises. Just like Clive Christian. You’re only paying for the price. Depending on which outlet you go to, you might walk out thinking Thaqeel is the most prized Cambodian distillation ever conducted. A few months ago, you’d have thought it was just another blend of oud and synthetic musk. While last week, it was a Hindi that smelled like a mediocre cultivated Thai oil. At the end of the day, you’re being asked to put down $680 for a quarter tola you really know nothing about.

Even if you’re not from the Middle East, your understanding of oud is likely to be as diluted as the stuff you buy here. This is how effectively ‘oud’ has been promoted through the years. Today in Western perfumery, instead of Jasmine you get methylheptine carbonate. In ‘oud’ shops, instead of oud oil, you get dioctyl phthalate. And that’s fine… as long as that’s what you’re being told.
 
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#4
In your encounter with Oud chips sold in the emirate malls did you find the level of adulteration is as extensive as it is in oil or were the majority of the chips that you've seen genuine?
 
#5
Very insightful! The chips looked painted and polished to me. Love the expressions when they got a whiff of Assam Organic, priceless. Free education. Now, only if I could get my hands on everything in those shops lol.
 
#6
akhi abuayoob!of all oud wood you saw on vedio.Ensar chose one piece which he said could been not polished and worth burning.
 

Ensar Oud

Well-Known Member
#7
@taleb: You're welcome! But we should be the ones thanking you for your incredible hospitality. :)

@rising: Here is Part 1: http://agarwood.ensaroud.com

@masstika: Sadly, oud wood is subjected to adulteration even greater than oud oil. With oil, it's a matter of simple mixing, while wood is treated in such ways you'd be surprised to witness the sheer effort that goes into its 'manufacture'. Pressure implanted with metals that cause it to bubble and sizzle like natural high grade agarwood; polished, painted, rubbed to a brilliant luster with such effort you'd be in tears to see it.

Short answer: No. We didn't find one single oud chip that wasn't painted, polished, coated with metals or resins or lusters or God knows what. All fabricated wood.

The chip Taleb is referring to appeared genuine enough, and I almost told him to buy it. But upon burning a slither from it, I was forced to retract my suggestion. As far as looks went though, it sure had me fooled.
 
#8
it is amazing the level of sophistication that is involved in adulterating the Oud chips. I never understood though how can they make money this way but I was thinking with the western Standard where manual labor is more expensive than the raw material. I guess that is not the case in those parts of the world.
That last chip you held in your hand looked like a BMW (a Filaria that has been colored) and the sales person in the video did not seem to be knowledgeable and the store looked like a small outfit. How about the flagship stores for the big names (ASAQ and others) where the scene similar to what you've shown us or were there better quality chips and oils? Do you think there is a market or a niche for your type of Oud distillation (organic and artisnal) in the U.A.E. or do people just don't get it?
BTW, you never filled us in on the conclusion of your trip after Kuala Lumpur. You didn't come back empty handed. did you?
 
#10
Those SAs at ASAQ might say THAQ's Indo as I was once told, but they usually don't know any better. Gotta speak to higher ups for real info. Although as was pointed out on the bnotes forum, Ajmal's limited edition oud numbered 2005 bottles. That is about 2000 tolas of 'premium' oud oil. How they were able to churn out so much juice is as astonishing as is amusing their labeling it limited.

Ensar did you try out the 100k / kilo Indian wood at ASAQ and Ajmal?
 
#11
Yes oudramatic we tried the 100k/kilo ASAQ.As a matter of fact,it is actually 75K/kilo,and it is a( muattar) oud or (mubakhr) what ever you want to call.Ajmal's 50k/kilo,is the highest in price.But again no guarantee that it is" indian".
 
#12
@alihasan.yes we went to areej emirate.we also asked the sale's man if we can see the owner personally.unfournately the owner was not at wafe branch dubai.the picture on vedio with a bag of oud wood on ensar's lap,is actually from areej emirate.
 
#13
Areej Al ameerat has no more of their famed blue oud. Their best stuff was Malaysian last I checked.

Taleb as for ASAQ and Ajmal they both had Indian oud over 100K a few months ago. ASAQs 100k+ hindi was quite typical of what I've smelled before labelled hindi but alot more refined, dense. Visually it had little to no bunk. Ajmal also had a 75K. You could meet up with Nazir Ajmal at Al Haramain Center, if you'd like to discuss the origins of their oud.

Is the muattar oud you are referring to soaked in dark oil? If so then that was there as well.
 

Ensar Oud

Well-Known Member
#14
@Oudramatic: We can't really go on what salespeople tell us, that's true. Some of them clearly don't have a passion for what they do, so it's understandable if the details don't matter much to them. Also the fact that they probably don't get too many people coming in asking about the details.

@masstika: In the current market, you can both win and lose big with fake wood. A local can earn a decent amount of cash for a good-looking (made to look good, that is) batch of wood. The person on the buying end, though, is cheated not only out of his cash, but also out of the pleasure of burning authentic oud wood.

We went to all the flagship stores in different malls and markets in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. It's the same story, no matter where you look. The only place I was expecting to find some kind of surprise was Areej al Ameerat, given its location in the prestigious Wafi Mall. The salesperson was professional and admitted when he didn’t know something. The presentation was grotesquely attractive (aligator-skin bright-red suitcases, purportedly for storing oud wood) but that’s about as much as I got from going there. The oils were a letdown.

Whether there's a market for what we do, I'm not so sure. Not without some education, I think. And we'd be swimming against a mighty current.

Of course, I didn't come back empty-handed from KL! I actually got some very useful tips from my two hosts. I learned that if I open a fast food restaurant near the departure gates in the new KL airport, I'd be able to cater to about a thousand heads per day, and earn some good money. At least this is what my host, who'd ceased all distillation activities since 2001 kept telling me. In this way, he insisted, I'd save myself the headache of having to deal with all the cheating that goes on in the oud trade. I also picked up good pointers about real estate opportunities in Cambodia. It seems the real estate in Phnom Penh is skyrocketing by the minute.

All of that said, and all realities considered, nothing offers the same returns a year or two or three down the line as a bottle of Oud Ishaq, stored away and allowed to age even further; not the clearest diamonds and not the finest bullion. As we see nothing but cultivated oils being offered of late by our colleagues and well-wishing competitors, the price of vintage wild oils is bound to skyrocket even more than Phnom Penh real estate, I am sure. :)
 

Ensar Oud

Well-Known Member
#15
The best way for you to understand 'where the 700 tolas go' is by ordering a bottle of oud from Ajmal (ask them for the finest money can buy), and then order a bottle of Ishaq. Let your own nose be your guide. We'll all be eagerly awaiting your findings.
 
#16
I think I can explain the 700 tola question. Most of my Arab friends that I know in Saudi and the Gulf area when they Purchase Oud they purchase a few tolas! not only for personal use but to give to others as gift. This 1/4 tolas that we buy they consider those Samples and when you like it you're expected to purchase a few tolas. Those 700 tolas probably were sold to no more than 200 persons and when you have the number of outlets that they have and when you realize that this is a daily ritual for the majority of households then you can easily picture those amounts and more being sold. @Ensar: You could see this coming a long time ago didn't you and you must have thought about that day coming when your sources will stop dealing because of diminishing returns. Do you have enough supplies to hold us over until the new plantations bear fruit or are you continually looking for new contacts? I don't think you're throwing in the towel. Are you?
 
#17
Quite the greek tragedy Ensar.

As agonizing as it maybe, I think a double blind sniffing test is a great way to determine how good one's nose actually is. Would be amusing if someone were to unknowingly dismiss their own oil as trash.
 

Ensar Oud

Well-Known Member
#18
To explain. If Ajmal were interested in Thaqeel-thick oils, this batch wouldn't still be in the distiller's hands four years after distillation. And the fact that a 35-tola batch was all that was produced shows that there was no demand for such oils to begin with. Moreover, the oil is 80% wild. Both these factors – the wild-harvested origin and thickness of the oil – raise the production cost considerably, which is something Ajmal has absolutely zero interest in. They, along with all the other huge corporations are not interested in high-cost oils as they can never profit from stocking such oils. There is not enough oil to go around their 400+ branches worldwide, and they cannot 'standardize' the oil to give it their signature house note, which they must be able to stock continuously without any significant changes in the scent profile.

Ajmal, Al Haramain, ASAQ, etc all have chemists on the payroll who can break down raw materials to the molecule. They can fractionate certain scent molecules to the exclusion of others and mix the desired molecules with other aromatics to attain their desired 'house note' which they are then able to reproduce and distribute on a vast scale. 5-tola batches of oud, experimental distillations, rare lots of wood which can yield anywhere between one to ten tolas are not in their field of expertise, nor do they have the time or the funds to pursue such mishaps while seeking to maintain profitability.

Many would like to believe otherwise – that ASAQ are perfumers to the King, and hence they must stock rare distillations of unparalleled quality oud, and that Thaqeel is one such oil. The sad reality is that there is no such thing. Thaqeel is a cheap cultivated Thai oil that's been thickened mechanically is all my untrained nose could make it out to be – despite the fact I was told it is Indian by the sales rep who showed it to me. Other Thaqeels contained traces of synthetic musk. Others God only knows what.
 
#19
Ensar, I suppose I have myself to blame for the misconstrual of my post's intent. Perhaps I should have stated that I was only commenting on the latter portion of your post. : )

Not philosophical, purely empirical. : )

Yet another breakthrough in philosophical thought, dramatic. It is possible that one may dismiss the oils of one's own distiller as trash in a double blind test – all twelve of them – hence ipso facto Alan's oils are not only genuine, they are Oud Ishaq itself. Both the distiller and Alan are homo sapiens, after all. Am I with you?

From Oud Royale to Mostafa to 3000 – Koutan and LTD in between – everything I've produced and sold was the result of sheer luck; or shall we say possibility? I ne'er attributed any of it to my nose, as Greek as that may seem. ;)