It
is possible to guesstimate a 'best in class' when comparing between two of the same. Like if you say the 'best' navel oranges come from the Sunny State. Mississippi oranges may not compare… Were we to say Florida oranges are better than Japanese yuzu, though… In the first case, we're comparing the fruit of
citrus Sinensis trees cultivated in neighboring states. In the latter, we're looking at completely different species that produce radically different fruit. Same with the oleoresin of
aquilaria agallocha—a wholly distinct 'fruit' from that of
aquilaria malaccensis, of
aquilaria Sinensis, crassna, baneonsis, and so on… Comparing across different species always returns to the psyche of the comparer. There is no objective ground to go on.
Some people will say Korean ginseng is superior to American. I beg to differ.
Panax ginseng has unique medicinal properties that are not found in
ginseng quinquefolius. And vice versa. The two are not mutually exclusive. They
do different things. The one is a tonic, the other an adaptogen. They're prescribed for different conditions. Based on the patient's constitution.
I would argue that even within the same species, it is not possible to rule one variant as superior to another without succumbing to
some degree of privately held prejudice. You say Darjeeling is widely accepted as the best black tea. I'd take a cup of Golden Monkey from Yunnan any day. The preference returns to my palate, which operates on a different wiring to the one yours is hooked up to. I may have very fond memories of Yunnan agarwood, which lends a tinge of nostalgic 'value' to all things Yunnan in my head. You might be of Indian descent. As a purebred Punjabi, you cannot tolerate this new type of 'agarwood' they found south of the border on a godforsaken island that is now hailed as the 'best.' I used to scorn Malaysian oud. Until I married a Singaporean Malay, and Johor became my new 'Upstate.' No one is free of prejudice.
We operate on prejudices that help 'streamline' all the information that is coming at us at (literally) mindboggling speeds. Look at Taha's Filipino wood. Someone who has never seen it, or Taha, or the Philippines, or a single aquilaria tree in their life, decides that it is
not in fact Filipino. They are not working objectively, from the resined reality of a slab of molecules, but
subjectively, with their prejudice against Taha as the starting point: Taha is expensive—he lives in an expensive apartment—therefore he must make a lot of money—therefore I don't like him—therefore his wood is fake. 'Taha' needs to be made to conform to what
I think of him. Never the other way around. It takes a rare breed of intellect to rise above preconceived notions and the psychological framework of prejudice opinions are minted in, and judge by intrinsic value.
What kind of exactitude does it take for an acclaimed perfumista to go against all convention and write off a thousand hip and trendy new fragrances in favor of a traditional—not Hindi—but
Chinese oud, a Tanzanian sandal co-distill, and Purple Kinam?—when she was warned, not by her Western peers and colleagues, but by our very own 'Oudh' deputies that the oils in question do not amount to much? No doubt, only a rare intellect can counter all that and issue
such a verdict.
