Mission Borneo
- Thread starter Kruger
- Start date
We'll be heading off in a couple directions, masstika 
We're currently moving along the west, discussing our proposals with various local distillers. Although one aspect of our trip is to document the current harvesting and inoculation practices common in the region and to get a better idea of what exactly we can expect in the future, at the end of the day we're here to distill the craziest oils imaginable.
Today we met with the man who heads the national survey on agarwood trade. Many positive things came up, and the government does have a strategy in place to promote sustainable development in the region. Admittedly, it's a different story on the ground, having to co-ordinate between many different players, working with different sets of rules, but at least there's something on paper. Our voice might be aligned with the vision of the authorities, but it remains a matter of making the first moves towards seeing a tangible change in the way things are done. Meeting our criteria often requires a great deal of concession on the part of farmers and distillers (dropping the chemicals, for example), but that's how we hope to get the ball rolling in the right direction.
We're currently moving along the west, discussing our proposals with various local distillers. Although one aspect of our trip is to document the current harvesting and inoculation practices common in the region and to get a better idea of what exactly we can expect in the future, at the end of the day we're here to distill the craziest oils imaginable.Today we met with the man who heads the national survey on agarwood trade. Many positive things came up, and the government does have a strategy in place to promote sustainable development in the region. Admittedly, it's a different story on the ground, having to co-ordinate between many different players, working with different sets of rules, but at least there's something on paper. Our voice might be aligned with the vision of the authorities, but it remains a matter of making the first moves towards seeing a tangible change in the way things are done. Meeting our criteria often requires a great deal of concession on the part of farmers and distillers (dropping the chemicals, for example), but that's how we hope to get the ball rolling in the right direction.
Thomas, can you share with us some of those policies and measures you've learned that the government is undertaking to promote sustainable agarwood harvest? and from your initial impressions how did the Landscape change from the last time you were there?
ironically, I have just sampled the Borneo 5000 which is an old distillation and I wasn't sure if this is the right place and time to share with you my first impressions of it but then I thought it will be an appropriate prelude to what Ensar and you are attempting to do here and to serve as a bench mark against what the future may hold.
Following in the tradition of Borneo 3000 and 4000 now comes Borneo 5000, a dark Amber/dark Green color with light body and shiny surface. Staying true to form this iteration of The Borneo's 000's series follow the same lines of good balance between a good amount of camphor notes enveloping that not-so high pitched notes familiar to Borneo oils. A good balance between sweet notes and slight bitterness. This oil IMHO distinguishes itself by clarity and accessibility. The notes unfold and lay in there for you to discern, no fuzziness and no cloudiness. The straight forwardness of this oil is initially unsettling like stepping out to the mid noon sun from darkened mud brick walled house, but once your eyes gets used to the bright landscape you start to smell the Peaches, yellow flesh and ripened by the sun, vertiver and spiknard like roots add spice and earthiness and all oh so well balanced. This oil would be an equivalent to Oud Nuh but in the Borneo strain. This is a Camp Fire Oud oil to be worn on a tropical sun set and evening cocktails scenes. The dry down is soft and powdery with the faintest notes of that signature Ensar's Kinam. This oil can serve equally well to a new comer looking for a classical Borneo and and more experienced who need to have a neutral standard to compare with other Borneos. Personal likability 8 to 8.5
ironically, I have just sampled the Borneo 5000 which is an old distillation and I wasn't sure if this is the right place and time to share with you my first impressions of it but then I thought it will be an appropriate prelude to what Ensar and you are attempting to do here and to serve as a bench mark against what the future may hold.
Following in the tradition of Borneo 3000 and 4000 now comes Borneo 5000, a dark Amber/dark Green color with light body and shiny surface. Staying true to form this iteration of The Borneo's 000's series follow the same lines of good balance between a good amount of camphor notes enveloping that not-so high pitched notes familiar to Borneo oils. A good balance between sweet notes and slight bitterness. This oil IMHO distinguishes itself by clarity and accessibility. The notes unfold and lay in there for you to discern, no fuzziness and no cloudiness. The straight forwardness of this oil is initially unsettling like stepping out to the mid noon sun from darkened mud brick walled house, but once your eyes gets used to the bright landscape you start to smell the Peaches, yellow flesh and ripened by the sun, vertiver and spiknard like roots add spice and earthiness and all oh so well balanced. This oil would be an equivalent to Oud Nuh but in the Borneo strain. This is a Camp Fire Oud oil to be worn on a tropical sun set and evening cocktails scenes. The dry down is soft and powdery with the faintest notes of that signature Ensar's Kinam. This oil can serve equally well to a new comer looking for a classical Borneo and and more experienced who need to have a neutral standard to compare with other Borneos. Personal likability 8 to 8.5
Thank you everyone for your prayers and good wishes!
@masstika: We went over the official government report dealing with
forestry and conservation. Several points came up, but some of the
initiatives in place are more stringent measures to regulate illegal
poaching and sourcing. At the same time, they are promoting a broader
training program educating new comers about the industry and the
importance of a holistic approach with the future in mind. This
includes expanding job creation opportunities, as well as making the
industry work for the local economy.
Several people from here recently attended a conference in Kuala
Lumpur, where the cultivation of agarwood was up for discussion. The
event included many PhDs who contributed their expertise in fields
like forestry, agriculture and chemistry, making the approach more
cross-disciplined than ever before. We were also briefed with some
recent scientific data which I’m not at liberty to discuss now, except
to say that there’s some funny business going down in some parts.
We’re busy preparing a report based on our findings so far, which
we’ll share shortly.
@masstika: We went over the official government report dealing with
forestry and conservation. Several points came up, but some of the
initiatives in place are more stringent measures to regulate illegal
poaching and sourcing. At the same time, they are promoting a broader
training program educating new comers about the industry and the
importance of a holistic approach with the future in mind. This
includes expanding job creation opportunities, as well as making the
industry work for the local economy.
Several people from here recently attended a conference in Kuala
Lumpur, where the cultivation of agarwood was up for discussion. The
event included many PhDs who contributed their expertise in fields
like forestry, agriculture and chemistry, making the approach more
cross-disciplined than ever before. We were also briefed with some
recent scientific data which I’m not at liberty to discuss now, except
to say that there’s some funny business going down in some parts.
We’re busy preparing a report based on our findings so far, which
we’ll share shortly.
Our experience with cultivation in Assam has not been limited to 10-15-20 year-old trees. In fact, both Assam Black and Assam Organic were distilled from (in the case of Black, government-planted) organically grown trees, at least 50 and 30 years-old, respectively. None of the trees had a single man-made hole in them at the time of harvest, having grown in their natural habitat without any external interference whatsoever. Apart from the seeds having been planted by men, these trees were essentially wild.
On the other hand, with the sudden disappearance of Oud Idrees, you can expect more vintage, wild Assams to get launched. I'm not going to give away everything just yet, but keep an eye out for our monumental five-year-old Meghalayan: Oud Yunus.
On the other hand, with the sudden disappearance of Oud Idrees, you can expect more vintage, wild Assams to get launched. I'm not going to give away everything just yet, but keep an eye out for our monumental five-year-old Meghalayan: Oud Yunus.
Thomas: your posts are stressing and perplexing all at once about the status of Agarwood trade in Borneo today. I am not a cynic but for the sake of adding clarifications and information allow me to pose some questions that I and maybe others have in their minds. The new "Chinese demand" for Agarwood seems to be tied to carving and to higher grade woods (Sinking and and Kyara, two you've mentioned). Those woods were never used for distillation, not on a regular bases any way, and should not have an impact on that supply. However, Ensar previously have mentioned that it's because of the new comers and armatures who been felling the trees down whether infected or not, but could that really account for the mass disappearance of wood on such a scale as you've depicted? Secondly, what has been the reaction of the "old" guys so to speak, The Old Arabian Houses, surely they didn't just sit on the side and watch the Vietnamese haul their loot away without some kind of reaction. what have you seen so far? And where is CITES and the local government in all of this, it surely can not all be shadow market? You've also mentioned Businesses that've closed up and idle distilleries that haven't seen production runs since 2005! and yet if anyone were to walk in any mall in Dubai or spend 15 minutes on-line you would not have picked up on any drop or shortage in the market, maybe a slight rise in cost but you still can get what everyone touts as Pure Borneo Oils from most vendors; how do you reconcile those two pictures? It can't all be old distillations just being released.
Oh my... 'Everyone' touts the oils in the malls of Dubai as 'Pure Borneo Oils'!? Tell you what, `ammu. If you can get floraopia to state here that he considers them pure (he lives in Saudi and has dealt with them), I'll give you anything you like from my private oud collection
Just because everyone here's been spoonfed Oud Thaqeel and told it is pure that doesn't make it pure, `ammu. The 'Old Arabian Houses' have as much to do with pure agarwood oil as McDonald's has to do with natural whole foods.
On the other hand, if you really believe the 'Old Arabian Houses' offer pure oud oil, then you have no reason to stress over it ever coming to an end.
Just because everyone here's been spoonfed Oud Thaqeel and told it is pure that doesn't make it pure, `ammu. The 'Old Arabian Houses' have as much to do with pure agarwood oil as McDonald's has to do with natural whole foods.
On the other hand, if you really believe the 'Old Arabian Houses' offer pure oud oil, then you have no reason to stress over it ever coming to an end.
First thing to note is that agarwood is an organic raw material, comprising many grades in a single tree. It’s from one and the same tree that we can get kien, sieah, incense-grade, sinking-grade, and plain white wood. We don’t find a tree that contains only one or the other – we don’t find one tree for China, another for the Gulf; one that is wholly sinking-grade or green Kyara. The same tree can be used to produce various grades of oil, from good to bad.
The current supply of agarwood has been an accumulative process, with very lengthy maturation cycles. You need decades for one tree to be worth anything, after which a market catering to thousands all goes after it. It’s a very limited pot. The trees don’t grow overnight, so we don’t have a new harvest to look forward to every other season like we do oranges or barley. It takes a lot less time to wipe out the supply than it takes for it to be replenished. There comes a tipping point. Same thing is happening to coral. Generations of growth, wiped out in no time. Before too long we’ll be reading how the Great Barrier Reef is not that great anymore.
We don’t claim that the mass disappearance of agarwood species is thanks to the Chinese alone. In fact, most of the damage has been done before they even stepped on the scene. Wild wood in Cambodia has probably been gone before a single bead was carved in China. The question is: how come the wood is finished in Cambodia (and Thailand, and Laos, and Vietnam, for that matter)?
The answer lies in your second point: the Old Arabian Houses. I’m not going out on a limb saying that the Arabian market is by and large responsible for what happened in Cambodia. There, the Gulf companies have nothing to do with the production front. They buy ready-made goods, and lots of them, at low-cost. We know several of the Gulf’s major suppliers, and it’s the same story of mass demand. And we know, or I hope most of us do, what happens to the oil afterwards.
From what we see, the reaction of the Gulf market is to just keep doing what they do. That the old Arabian houses sell oud oil is a myth. The Arabian houses sell synthetic perfumes, supposed to replicate oud. What comes out of the old Arabian houses is as much of a comparison as that coming from Dior or Tom Ford.
There’s no shortage with the Arabs, just like there’s no shortage of Gucci. They have enough chemicals to basically stay in business forever. If we believe that we’re getting ‘pure’ oud from them, then we have nothing to worry about. If what’s being offered on the Arab market is agarwood oil, then there’s reason to rejoice because their oils will be around for a long time to come.
On the other hand, if supply is so readily available, how come there’s only one Borneo 3000? Thousands of distillers, backed by the entire Middle Eastern oud market, have not been able to produce even a drop that can compare. It’s simple math. With such a limited pot to work with, what happens when the festive season starts? With thousands of people buying oud/perfume as gifts, daily, they offer the same thing Hugo Boss is offering: synthesised perfume (good or bad). Nothing more. As for the reaction to the scarcity in Borneo, I don’t remember ever seeing a single Borneo oil coming from them. In fact, if you ask most Gulf customers, it would surprise me if they even knew what ‘Borneo’ means
The fact that we can walk into any store in Dubai or spend 15 minutes online to find oud only testifies to the ‘purity’ of it all. While we’re at it, we can even get some pure musk from the same sites. And for cheap, too.
Best thing to do is to also ask Christopher McMahon, ask Chris Hoeth, ask Trygve, ask Mandy, where’s their oud?
The current supply of agarwood has been an accumulative process, with very lengthy maturation cycles. You need decades for one tree to be worth anything, after which a market catering to thousands all goes after it. It’s a very limited pot. The trees don’t grow overnight, so we don’t have a new harvest to look forward to every other season like we do oranges or barley. It takes a lot less time to wipe out the supply than it takes for it to be replenished. There comes a tipping point. Same thing is happening to coral. Generations of growth, wiped out in no time. Before too long we’ll be reading how the Great Barrier Reef is not that great anymore.
We don’t claim that the mass disappearance of agarwood species is thanks to the Chinese alone. In fact, most of the damage has been done before they even stepped on the scene. Wild wood in Cambodia has probably been gone before a single bead was carved in China. The question is: how come the wood is finished in Cambodia (and Thailand, and Laos, and Vietnam, for that matter)?
The answer lies in your second point: the Old Arabian Houses. I’m not going out on a limb saying that the Arabian market is by and large responsible for what happened in Cambodia. There, the Gulf companies have nothing to do with the production front. They buy ready-made goods, and lots of them, at low-cost. We know several of the Gulf’s major suppliers, and it’s the same story of mass demand. And we know, or I hope most of us do, what happens to the oil afterwards.
From what we see, the reaction of the Gulf market is to just keep doing what they do. That the old Arabian houses sell oud oil is a myth. The Arabian houses sell synthetic perfumes, supposed to replicate oud. What comes out of the old Arabian houses is as much of a comparison as that coming from Dior or Tom Ford.
There’s no shortage with the Arabs, just like there’s no shortage of Gucci. They have enough chemicals to basically stay in business forever. If we believe that we’re getting ‘pure’ oud from them, then we have nothing to worry about. If what’s being offered on the Arab market is agarwood oil, then there’s reason to rejoice because their oils will be around for a long time to come.
On the other hand, if supply is so readily available, how come there’s only one Borneo 3000? Thousands of distillers, backed by the entire Middle Eastern oud market, have not been able to produce even a drop that can compare. It’s simple math. With such a limited pot to work with, what happens when the festive season starts? With thousands of people buying oud/perfume as gifts, daily, they offer the same thing Hugo Boss is offering: synthesised perfume (good or bad). Nothing more. As for the reaction to the scarcity in Borneo, I don’t remember ever seeing a single Borneo oil coming from them. In fact, if you ask most Gulf customers, it would surprise me if they even knew what ‘Borneo’ means
The fact that we can walk into any store in Dubai or spend 15 minutes online to find oud only testifies to the ‘purity’ of it all. While we’re at it, we can even get some pure musk from the same sites. And for cheap, too.
Best thing to do is to also ask Christopher McMahon, ask Chris Hoeth, ask Trygve, ask Mandy, where’s their oud?
Thanks Ensar and Thomas for taking the time out to reply to my missives and questions in the middle of what you're doing. I was trying to be provocative and spoke with Bravado when I said the shops were brimming with Borneos in Dubai Malls and I appreciate that you understood the jest of my comment which was the lack of reaction in the Malls to the vast disappearance of the source and I guess the reason and hypothesis provided would make sense. When we are talking about The state of Agarwood in Borneo, are we talking about the entire island of Borneo, Indonesian including tarakan and Malaysian sides, and Brunei? what about further destination like merauk and Papua New Guinea? I had personally felt that the merauk Oils were never well represented in a big variety. And thanks for the information about the presence of different grades of Oud in the same tree for I had thought that all the resin develops in the same manner in the tree so when you find say an old tree the resin would be consistent through out the tree, so thanks again for the correction. I have been wondering if the science have managed to figure out what substance in the inculcation which is responsible for what kind of scent profile in the resin and that way the growers can tailor the inoculation to a specific kind of scent that they are after (kind of like genetic engineering)? Did you see anything new on the ground that would change your mind about chemical inculcation? and on that issue can you clarify your objection to them again, is it because of the chemical traces that could be found in the resin and the claims of inferior quality of the resultant resins, have you seen those first hand? Finally, is there a silver lining in the clouds to this rise in Chinese demands for agarwood? and what's next for you guys then?
All Quiet on the Bornean Front - Save for a Few Quacks
Almost without exception, all producers on the Malaysian side of Borneo (i.e. Northwest Borneo) source their wood ‘from Indonesia’. Locals in Sarawak, for example, can’t just go out for a daytrip hoping to find some oud wood along the way. So, most of the wood processed on the Malaysian side already comes from across the border.
Brunei is something of an anomaly, since the enforcement of the country’s policies is much more effective there than elsewhere on the island. It’s far more difficult to source wild wood without approval in Brunei than it is elsewhere. The situation in Brunei is also very different in that the trees themselves are more representative of what we would have found in the rest of the island a few years ago – having been allowed to grow undisturbed – kind of. Hints about the great wood available in Malaysia and Indonesia in fact coming from Brunei are numerous. So, when you do encounter exceptional grades, you need to think about where exactly it came from, and exactly how ‘legit’ the whole thing is.
One of the leading scientists in Malaysia, who has an impressive collection of wild wood and is very passionate about keeping things natural, has been running some interesting experiments. One thing they're testing at the moment is to study trees with the most advanced, most impressive resin formations. They then try to duplicate the molecular structure of that particular tree and use it as part of an inoculation formula. One way to test this approach is to inoculate a single tree using different specimens of ‘good DNA’, and then see which one works best. The process is entirely organic. However, it will take some time for the studies to reflect anything concrete. Whether such an innovation would take off is another question. Like we mentioned before, the chemical route gets people quicker results. Our bias towards inoculation using chemicals is not just a matter of principle. It’s an issue of quality. Say I put a drop of vinegar in a glass of water, the taste will be obvious. And to most, unpleasant. Same thing with oud – if you’re used to a certain standard, something other than it stands out.
Almost without exception, all producers on the Malaysian side of Borneo (i.e. Northwest Borneo) source their wood ‘from Indonesia’. Locals in Sarawak, for example, can’t just go out for a daytrip hoping to find some oud wood along the way. So, most of the wood processed on the Malaysian side already comes from across the border.
Brunei is something of an anomaly, since the enforcement of the country’s policies is much more effective there than elsewhere on the island. It’s far more difficult to source wild wood without approval in Brunei than it is elsewhere. The situation in Brunei is also very different in that the trees themselves are more representative of what we would have found in the rest of the island a few years ago – having been allowed to grow undisturbed – kind of. Hints about the great wood available in Malaysia and Indonesia in fact coming from Brunei are numerous. So, when you do encounter exceptional grades, you need to think about where exactly it came from, and exactly how ‘legit’ the whole thing is.
One of the leading scientists in Malaysia, who has an impressive collection of wild wood and is very passionate about keeping things natural, has been running some interesting experiments. One thing they're testing at the moment is to study trees with the most advanced, most impressive resin formations. They then try to duplicate the molecular structure of that particular tree and use it as part of an inoculation formula. One way to test this approach is to inoculate a single tree using different specimens of ‘good DNA’, and then see which one works best. The process is entirely organic. However, it will take some time for the studies to reflect anything concrete. Whether such an innovation would take off is another question. Like we mentioned before, the chemical route gets people quicker results. Our bias towards inoculation using chemicals is not just a matter of principle. It’s an issue of quality. Say I put a drop of vinegar in a glass of water, the taste will be obvious. And to most, unpleasant. Same thing with oud – if you’re used to a certain standard, something other than it stands out.
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