@Ensar, come now, why would you spell out F.T.’s name like that? You know I never want to make the fatal mistake of sharing contact names any more (look where it’s landed me). 
@Habz786 , if I remember correctly, I had used the terms “high grade” (implying high raw material grade) vs “high quality” (implying good techniques+apparatus, not necessarily any raw material implications)… I think that’s what you’re referring to. Of course, I attached specific meanings to these terms and they are certainly not an industry standard. I made the distinction solely for the purpose of ouducational value.
Yes, there are some that cannot tell the difference between the two. I tried a few times (the most famous case being Sutera Ungu vs Ukupan Kayu), and failed. But there are others who can tell the difference in the blink of an eye. One sniff is all it takes. For understandable reasons, Ensar is the textbook example of such people, he can measure up any oil and know when the oleoresin is talking and where its auxiliary notes in an oil making noise (a growing market… a growing concern!).
Do you recall the original (pre-release) description of Lao Chen Xiang? It was SUPER explicitly stated that I deliberately allowed auxiliary notes to creep in, despite being Gen3. Mai Wan Lao, even more auxiliary notes - that was the whole point.
Ask any of the well known artisanal distillers, and they will all tell you the same thing: their biggest woe is the some folks' attachment to auxiliary notes, and for this reason they continue to sell such oils. Gotta put bread on the table!
The next Lao (steel brew, all under my hand) was going to be the one where I finally broke free from all that. By now, its pretty clear that will never happen.
Hasad-
Yikes, okay… I have repeatedly suggested many times that there are things you have gotten totally wrong, and for no justifiable reason. However, in this case I can totally understand why you’d think my ‘Hasad’ post was sneakishly directed at you. A Hasad allegation is an ugly one, and I apologize for not having made it clear before that I was not referring to you. In fact, @Ouddict … I’m disheartened that (it seems) you never conveyed what we discussed over the phone.
Its clear you’re upset about my use of the term MOCA, you see it as a personal attack. After talking to Ouddict, it seemed that’s why you started all this. I told him clearly (and have told others), and I will repeat it again here publicly: I have nothing personal against anyone, yourself included, or any competitor. My use of the term was solely directed at a growing community of folks who (1) have started loving auxiliary notes more than oud itself, and (2) being unable to tell the difference between oud and good oud, want to take the artisanal vendors to court.
Now having said that, what’s baffling is that you started messaging people about me/my oils well before I ever used the term MOCA. Even more baffling: you smelled BOTH Laos oils before anyone else, and even confirmed in WhatsApp that they’re different from ‘the other’ oil in question. I’m still not sure what to make of this.
You think my older oils smell better, that’s okay, I respect your opinion you are entitled to it. You are not alone, like I said many other folks are quite attached to auxiliary notes as well. Now on the flip side I recall there’s an oil that was highly lauded by you, whereas I got a massive sinus attack from the synthetics in it. So we’ll just have to agree to disagree on what we like and dislike.
Quality-wise, no. All my oils post-2014 are leagues ahead of pre-2014 oils. Moreover, my emphasis since then has been on older generation of trees coupled with visual qualitative factors (previously, only visual).
Again, some like oud, others like auxiliary stuff.
Cutting theatrics… now you got me happy.
You just have to spend a few hours with me to realize I have NO TIME for online wars, politics, he-said-she-said’s. If there’s a place I can go to extend my 24 hour days to 25 hours, let me know.
Unlike what Ensar suggested above, I actually agree with you: I have NOT addressed your cross-questioning directly (and even gone to the extent of hinting why). I had hoped you’d get the hint, connecting the dots I had laid out.
No, I do not doubt you in the least, in what you claim the distiller<s> (let’s make that plural) told you. I neither doubt he told you what you’re claiming, nor do I doubt the accuracy of your conveyance of it. Now as for me, I have an actual recorded phone conversation with Dear Distiller.. forget about a chat screenshot. I am still not sure I want to share it here though, because I fear it will unnecessarily get a third-party involved (who is mentioned in that phone convo). If you haven’t been able to tell already, I like to QUASH fitnah or anything that could potentially lead to fitnah (sadly, clearly even my Canadian sensibilities have been proven futile, as some disagreements and misunderstandings arose here, which I had to clear in private).
Look Habz, the craziest distillations I’ve ever done personally (Syed Series) are extremely tiny but cost around the same or even more than all other distillations put together. There’s (a surprisingly large number of) folks online who have visited me while I was conducting such projects. Many have seen the raw materials in person, some even now possess some of it for reference. What they can all tell you is….. Taha is insane for selling those oils at his prices. The latest sandalwood distillation (Tan Xiang No.2) was actually a loss. $1,500ish per bottle loss, to be precise. Why did I make it? To please the crowd (Gen4.. more auxiliary notes). Did I charge a single DIME more for the oil, or cancel the pre-orders? Nope.
To really drive my point home: you can order the raw material for Byakudan No.1 from Yamada-Matsu (i.e. know the cost price of the material), have someone distill it for you (i.e. know the yield of oil from that wood, forget that.. I’ll tell you how much my yield was), and then see how much I “overcharged” by. Clearly my efforts don't mean squat, so that's of course not even part of the "cost equation" (and fyi, for Syed Series oils, I just guesstimate the gas/water/etc costs and add that on together with Paypal 4.4% fee).
The same goes for all the other oils I made where folks got to see in person the wood being dumped into the pot, but too bad those batches of wood are all gone so I can’t really prove any point with those.
I can tell you this much: there’s probably not a distiller in the world who puts in as much effort or loses as much sleep as me for distilling an oil. Both Adam and Ensar, after they finally got to see how I do it (and in the past, would have a DUAL team of two distillers switching shifts to do the same), can tell you: the amount of effort that’s put into producing a batch of my oils, the price is NOT fair. But not in the way you’d think, I mean the opposite: they should cost more.
I deal with it a different way though (namely, relying on a boost in yield to lower the cost-per-gram, and squeeze in my margin there).
So imagine how it breaks my heart that I, of all people, am made out to be the poster-boy of naughty profiteering oud vendors.
Fun fact: one of the first things I would ask any distiller before I’d sign him on, was how much per tola he typically sells his oils for. I would then offer him DOUBLE the rate as his cut (yes, Lao Dear Distiller included, $110 fyi not $150) per tola for making my oils. So long as my wood, and my techniques are used. The boosted yield which dramatically lowered the cost-per-gram - THAT was the margin from which Taha brought home the bread. As for the distillers, well hey, who would complain about such an arrangement? Free bread for them! (i.e. they don’t have to spend money on raw material out of their own pocket)
Tssk, why am I not surprised? If 2016 taught me anything (and what has ultimately led to me now being a blue-collar labourer).. its... well, what I had hoped you’d have realized by now. I need not spell it out.
Post them here or not, what saddens me is that yet again you didn’t feel the urge to whip out your phone and just message me about it. If the Sulawesi example (earlier post) doesn’t shake your trust in these lovely folks or even the Ouddict case (the distiller was SUPER mad at me btw, even though I censored out his name), well, I guess I’ll have to deal with each case one by one, in the same “guilty until proven innocent” manner, if that is your wish.
But spend half a day in my shoes though, and you’ll understand why I keep saying I don’t actually have time for all this, and why I'd rather resolve these (apparently tons of?!) issues with you privately.
Food for everyone’s thoughts: between late 2015 to mid 2016, I spent a fortune funding a ton of distillations, having finally felt The Great Extinction finally setting in (a mighty punch in the ribs). Out of this 3-ish years’ worth of oud oils I forked out the cash for, I only actually got a handful. My plan had been to “live off” of those oils while I tried to figure out an alternative strategy (plantation oud was first on the list, but that’s pretty much destroyed too now). Imagine if that insurance policy dissolved right under your nose. You can imagine how I feel. All because I was a bit slow in paying distillers for their work (not even the wood cost, that was already taken care of), due to the rug being yanked from under my feet (The Great Extinction).
So if I said anything offensive in my posts, do please understand that YES they are emotionally charged (understandably, I hope!) but I do try to be as diplomatic as possible, and try to post well-thought out posts. Even this one I’m posting after spending something like 3 hours typing it up. Time I don’t actually have, but am forced to use for this unnecessary/unproductive fiasco.
I can already sense (and I hope I’m wrong) that some will find my categorization and labeling of the ‘auxiliary crowd’ as offensive. Please know that I don’t mean any offence, I simply make an observation from the production side, as any half-decent businessman would.
@im_au, not just tolas, TENS of tolas (the Gen4 oil, as usual, was supposed to be for my wholesale clients who buy in bulk, none of whom got a single drop). And not just the Gen4 oil, but the Gen3 predecessor had a large portion missing as well. Dear Distiller said his secretary sent the missing 6 tolas to ‘someone’ in the U.K. while he was vacationing in Australia. I contacted everyone I could think of, in trying to figure out where it went. To this day, I haven’t gotten to the bottom of it.
I sense that perhaps you think I’m careless with my distillation projects. On the contrary, the 2016 loss disasters all occurred while I was too busy trying to recuperate the wood business personally (i.e. busy with jungle treks), heck, even the disappearing act with the Laotian oils happened while I was on one such trip (literally just before we were about to enter Impasugong). You'd think these guys, after being taken care of so well for so long, would give me a couple weeks to come out of the jungle. Or in one case, recover from a busted back which rendered me an immobile vegetable for days.
As for my usual practice before all hell broke loose, suffice it to say that I would go in person to actually start a distillation (and even had 7 - or 9, I forget - CCTV cameras to monitor some of the sites remotely, on the XMEye app on my phone).
So every gram of the Laotian oils was indeed accounted for. Just not in my possession.
@Habz786 , if I remember correctly, I had used the terms “high grade” (implying high raw material grade) vs “high quality” (implying good techniques+apparatus, not necessarily any raw material implications)… I think that’s what you’re referring to. Of course, I attached specific meanings to these terms and they are certainly not an industry standard. I made the distinction solely for the purpose of ouducational value.
Yes, there are some that cannot tell the difference between the two. I tried a few times (the most famous case being Sutera Ungu vs Ukupan Kayu), and failed. But there are others who can tell the difference in the blink of an eye. One sniff is all it takes. For understandable reasons, Ensar is the textbook example of such people, he can measure up any oil and know when the oleoresin is talking and where its auxiliary notes in an oil making noise (a growing market… a growing concern!).
Do you recall the original (pre-release) description of Lao Chen Xiang? It was SUPER explicitly stated that I deliberately allowed auxiliary notes to creep in, despite being Gen3. Mai Wan Lao, even more auxiliary notes - that was the whole point.
Ask any of the well known artisanal distillers, and they will all tell you the same thing: their biggest woe is the some folks' attachment to auxiliary notes, and for this reason they continue to sell such oils. Gotta put bread on the table!
The next Lao (steel brew, all under my hand) was going to be the one where I finally broke free from all that. By now, its pretty clear that will never happen.
Hasad-
Yikes, okay… I have repeatedly suggested many times that there are things you have gotten totally wrong, and for no justifiable reason. However, in this case I can totally understand why you’d think my ‘Hasad’ post was sneakishly directed at you. A Hasad allegation is an ugly one, and I apologize for not having made it clear before that I was not referring to you. In fact, @Ouddict … I’m disheartened that (it seems) you never conveyed what we discussed over the phone.
Its clear you’re upset about my use of the term MOCA, you see it as a personal attack. After talking to Ouddict, it seemed that’s why you started all this. I told him clearly (and have told others), and I will repeat it again here publicly: I have nothing personal against anyone, yourself included, or any competitor. My use of the term was solely directed at a growing community of folks who (1) have started loving auxiliary notes more than oud itself, and (2) being unable to tell the difference between oud and good oud, want to take the artisanal vendors to court.
Now having said that, what’s baffling is that you started messaging people about me/my oils well before I ever used the term MOCA. Even more baffling: you smelled BOTH Laos oils before anyone else, and even confirmed in WhatsApp that they’re different from ‘the other’ oil in question. I’m still not sure what to make of this.
You think my older oils smell better, that’s okay, I respect your opinion you are entitled to it. You are not alone, like I said many other folks are quite attached to auxiliary notes as well. Now on the flip side I recall there’s an oil that was highly lauded by you, whereas I got a massive sinus attack from the synthetics in it. So we’ll just have to agree to disagree on what we like and dislike.
Quality-wise, no. All my oils post-2014 are leagues ahead of pre-2014 oils. Moreover, my emphasis since then has been on older generation of trees coupled with visual qualitative factors (previously, only visual).
Again, some like oud, others like auxiliary stuff.
Cutting theatrics… now you got me happy.
You just have to spend a few hours with me to realize I have NO TIME for online wars, politics, he-said-she-said’s. If there’s a place I can go to extend my 24 hour days to 25 hours, let me know.
Unlike what Ensar suggested above, I actually agree with you: I have NOT addressed your cross-questioning directly (and even gone to the extent of hinting why). I had hoped you’d get the hint, connecting the dots I had laid out.
No, I do not doubt you in the least, in what you claim the distiller<s> (let’s make that plural) told you. I neither doubt he told you what you’re claiming, nor do I doubt the accuracy of your conveyance of it. Now as for me, I have an actual recorded phone conversation with Dear Distiller.. forget about a chat screenshot. I am still not sure I want to share it here though, because I fear it will unnecessarily get a third-party involved (who is mentioned in that phone convo). If you haven’t been able to tell already, I like to QUASH fitnah or anything that could potentially lead to fitnah (sadly, clearly even my Canadian sensibilities have been proven futile, as some disagreements and misunderstandings arose here, which I had to clear in private).
Look Habz, the craziest distillations I’ve ever done personally (Syed Series) are extremely tiny but cost around the same or even more than all other distillations put together. There’s (a surprisingly large number of) folks online who have visited me while I was conducting such projects. Many have seen the raw materials in person, some even now possess some of it for reference. What they can all tell you is….. Taha is insane for selling those oils at his prices. The latest sandalwood distillation (Tan Xiang No.2) was actually a loss. $1,500ish per bottle loss, to be precise. Why did I make it? To please the crowd (Gen4.. more auxiliary notes). Did I charge a single DIME more for the oil, or cancel the pre-orders? Nope.
To really drive my point home: you can order the raw material for Byakudan No.1 from Yamada-Matsu (i.e. know the cost price of the material), have someone distill it for you (i.e. know the yield of oil from that wood, forget that.. I’ll tell you how much my yield was), and then see how much I “overcharged” by. Clearly my efforts don't mean squat, so that's of course not even part of the "cost equation" (and fyi, for Syed Series oils, I just guesstimate the gas/water/etc costs and add that on together with Paypal 4.4% fee).
The same goes for all the other oils I made where folks got to see in person the wood being dumped into the pot, but too bad those batches of wood are all gone so I can’t really prove any point with those.
I can tell you this much: there’s probably not a distiller in the world who puts in as much effort or loses as much sleep as me for distilling an oil. Both Adam and Ensar, after they finally got to see how I do it (and in the past, would have a DUAL team of two distillers switching shifts to do the same), can tell you: the amount of effort that’s put into producing a batch of my oils, the price is NOT fair. But not in the way you’d think, I mean the opposite: they should cost more.
I deal with it a different way though (namely, relying on a boost in yield to lower the cost-per-gram, and squeeze in my margin there).
So imagine how it breaks my heart that I, of all people, am made out to be the poster-boy of naughty profiteering oud vendors.
Fun fact: one of the first things I would ask any distiller before I’d sign him on, was how much per tola he typically sells his oils for. I would then offer him DOUBLE the rate as his cut (yes, Lao Dear Distiller included, $110 fyi not $150) per tola for making my oils. So long as my wood, and my techniques are used. The boosted yield which dramatically lowered the cost-per-gram - THAT was the margin from which Taha brought home the bread. As for the distillers, well hey, who would complain about such an arrangement? Free bread for them!
(i.e. they don’t have to spend money on raw material out of their own pocket)Tssk, why am I not surprised? If 2016 taught me anything (and what has ultimately led to me now being a blue-collar labourer).. its... well, what I had hoped you’d have realized by now. I need not spell it out.
Post them here or not, what saddens me is that yet again you didn’t feel the urge to whip out your phone and just message me about it. If the Sulawesi example (earlier post) doesn’t shake your trust in these lovely folks or even the Ouddict case (the distiller was SUPER mad at me btw, even though I censored out his name), well, I guess I’ll have to deal with each case one by one, in the same “guilty until proven innocent” manner, if that is your wish.
But spend half a day in my shoes though, and you’ll understand why I keep saying I don’t actually have time for all this, and why I'd rather resolve these (apparently tons of?!) issues with you privately.
Food for everyone’s thoughts: between late 2015 to mid 2016, I spent a fortune funding a ton of distillations, having finally felt The Great Extinction finally setting in (a mighty punch in the ribs). Out of this 3-ish years’ worth of oud oils I forked out the cash for, I only actually got a handful. My plan had been to “live off” of those oils while I tried to figure out an alternative strategy (plantation oud was first on the list, but that’s pretty much destroyed too now). Imagine if that insurance policy dissolved right under your nose. You can imagine how I feel. All because I was a bit slow in paying distillers for their work (not even the wood cost, that was already taken care of), due to the rug being yanked from under my feet (The Great Extinction).
So if I said anything offensive in my posts, do please understand that YES they are emotionally charged (understandably, I hope!) but I do try to be as diplomatic as possible, and try to post well-thought out posts. Even this one I’m posting after spending something like 3 hours typing it up. Time I don’t actually have, but am forced to use for this unnecessary/unproductive fiasco.
I can already sense (and I hope I’m wrong) that some will find my categorization and labeling of the ‘auxiliary crowd’ as offensive. Please know that I don’t mean any offence, I simply make an observation from the production side, as any half-decent businessman would.
@im_au, not just tolas, TENS of tolas (the Gen4 oil, as usual, was supposed to be for my wholesale clients who buy in bulk, none of whom got a single drop). And not just the Gen4 oil, but the Gen3 predecessor had a large portion missing as well. Dear Distiller said his secretary sent the missing 6 tolas to ‘someone’ in the U.K. while he was vacationing in Australia. I contacted everyone I could think of, in trying to figure out where it went. To this day, I haven’t gotten to the bottom of it.
I sense that perhaps you think I’m careless with my distillation projects. On the contrary, the 2016 loss disasters all occurred while I was too busy trying to recuperate the wood business personally (i.e. busy with jungle treks), heck, even the disappearing act with the Laotian oils happened while I was on one such trip (literally just before we were about to enter Impasugong). You'd think these guys, after being taken care of so well for so long, would give me a couple weeks to come out of the jungle. Or in one case, recover from a busted back which rendered me an immobile vegetable for days.
As for my usual practice before all hell broke loose, suffice it to say that I would go in person to actually start a distillation (and even had 7 - or 9, I forget - CCTV cameras to monitor some of the sites remotely, on the XMEye app on my phone).
So every gram of the Laotian oils was indeed accounted for. Just not in my possession.
