I was going to burn a little bit of this 2001 Yamada Matsu SA wood. Rich smooth Borneo type - akin to the Baieido rikkoku Sasora. but then I found this sample of old Laos wood and decided to burn that. Not quite as elegant but an interesting burn…
I threw in some pictures of some other old wood bits from 2001 or so (left to right):
Yamada SA granules
Yamada SA "log" type (their term)
Yamada AA log type
Yamada AA powder
Yamada BB log type
Bolisat Lao PDR sample
Baieido Tsukigase Vietnamese ~2008
The one that is fascinating for me, and I'm so glad I didn't burn it when I got it, is the Bolisat Lao PDR sample. This is some of the very last little bit bits of wild wood they were able to gather right around the time that they decided to close down the business, this is the kind of material that those wacky tangy Lao oils like Sulaym's HM Royal Lao were distilled
from. That smells very much like a Bolisat oil.
So this is like a time capsule for me, reaching back to that actual source material, this must be from 1998 or 1999. I at one point had convinced myself that those weird Lao oils were from sinensis, but smelling this, I think it's actually crassna. Opening is a bit labdanum type funky, not quite as clean as my preferred profile but something I've experienced in quite a few crassna woods. I may not have the temperature quite right... the aroma for the later stage, the heated wood fibers, is wonderful - a nice spicy vanillin, rich toasted phenolic resin notes like espresso. I always prefer the second half of crassna chips on the burner.
