Yea Sumatora 1996 is a challenging wood for sure.. And people simply have different preferences.. There's some people who, no matter what, will just not like barnyard style ouds for instance, despite being great connoisseurs of other ouds..
I've noticed that some agarwood types lend themselves well to long sessions on the heater - generally the sweeter fruitier woods like Thai, Cambodian, some Malaysian, some Vietnamese - these I can have on the heater at 150C for 2-3 hours and they smell great for a long time.. Kyara is like this - at low temp on the heater a little sliver of kyara will send off pleasant vapors for several hours..
But other types of woods - generally the Indonesian, Borneo, Walla Patta, Philippines type woods have these amazing, soul-stirring openings, the first 15 minutes or so, but then if left on the heater can tend toward harsh, acrid, or overly dark bitter type notes.. Sometimes I really enjoy the progression - they take on a nutty, dark espresso with bitter dark fruits type aromas, and other times it just starts smelling harsh and nasty and I'll abort the heating session and transfer the offending wood to a waste receptacle.. Perhaps there is a heating style that works better with these sort of woods? I know that Taha of Agar Aura has a lot of opinions about the proper heating of woods - the guy seems to think pretty scientifically about his agarwood heating, though I can't recall anything about the details of what he posted about it..
Speaking of which, enjoyed some of the sinking Filipino wood I got from Taha this morning - wow, the opening is just incredible - has that effect that the finest woods do where, when the vapors hit the nose, they make you stop whatever you were doing or thinking about and get transported into blissful and spiritual olfactory experience.. It would appear that there is some really good wood from the Philippines on the market these days - I received a small qty of sinking chips from a friend on here back in 2018 and they seem to be as good as the material I bought from Taha, and way cheaper.. That Philippines wood has a really unique profile, it has this exotic herbal quality that I cannot describe in any more detail (maybe tarragon or something?), and the vapors are very dense/thick in how they smell, almost like you could cough on them - the sheer olfactory intensity of this type of wood is hard to match..
I've noticed that some agarwood types lend themselves well to long sessions on the heater - generally the sweeter fruitier woods like Thai, Cambodian, some Malaysian, some Vietnamese - these I can have on the heater at 150C for 2-3 hours and they smell great for a long time.. Kyara is like this - at low temp on the heater a little sliver of kyara will send off pleasant vapors for several hours..
But other types of woods - generally the Indonesian, Borneo, Walla Patta, Philippines type woods have these amazing, soul-stirring openings, the first 15 minutes or so, but then if left on the heater can tend toward harsh, acrid, or overly dark bitter type notes.. Sometimes I really enjoy the progression - they take on a nutty, dark espresso with bitter dark fruits type aromas, and other times it just starts smelling harsh and nasty and I'll abort the heating session and transfer the offending wood to a waste receptacle.. Perhaps there is a heating style that works better with these sort of woods? I know that Taha of Agar Aura has a lot of opinions about the proper heating of woods - the guy seems to think pretty scientifically about his agarwood heating, though I can't recall anything about the details of what he posted about it..
Speaking of which, enjoyed some of the sinking Filipino wood I got from Taha this morning - wow, the opening is just incredible - has that effect that the finest woods do where, when the vapors hit the nose, they make you stop whatever you were doing or thinking about and get transported into blissful and spiritual olfactory experience.. It would appear that there is some really good wood from the Philippines on the market these days - I received a small qty of sinking chips from a friend on here back in 2018 and they seem to be as good as the material I bought from Taha, and way cheaper.. That Philippines wood has a really unique profile, it has this exotic herbal quality that I cannot describe in any more detail (maybe tarragon or something?), and the vapors are very dense/thick in how they smell, almost like you could cough on them - the sheer olfactory intensity of this type of wood is hard to match..
