@Rai Munir @Al Shareef Oudh allow me more time with your recent posts, a few days or so, once i can digest them and i'll reply. overall though i think we are making good progress. we are achieving the goal of an online forum rather successfully. happy to see we are on track
🙂
in meantime i have one question for all members but especially to our fellow friends who have been present during a distillation or intimately know the process thru trusted friends (
@Faizal_p ,
@Al Shareef Oudh @F4R1d0uX @Mandeel AlMandeel ...)
note: dear disttiler mentioend above, i fully understand your reservation for not wanting to voice out opinion on another distiller's oil. i get it. i really do. but you guys holding back, being polite/takign high road... is stopping our progress. you have to choose to be consumer advocate or a supplier. picking and choosing is not fair to the rest of us on this forum. i apologize for being so direct, but my heart was aching to get this out. you refusing to (for valid reasons) share your experience on below, stops our progress. plus we talked about attempting to bring about respectful, educated peer review back to the community. lets start now. lets start here. an opportunity in front of us to do it right and set the right example for open dialogue to make real advancement.
I ask again, have you sampled some of the oils that are poster child's of this genre of oils? how do you think they are made?
could it be that (over simplifying here): really what these oils are all about is super low-temperature (hence high toned, aka top note heavy*) distillations as Faizal brought up (see more on this below) but also Head** heavy (also more on this below)?
* same holds true when fermenting grapes to make wine, or malt to make beer, or even distill them to make brandy/whiskey.... i.e lower tempreture ferments accentuate top notes and captures the high toned esters and more volatile notes, while in warmer ferments those high-toned notes blow off and finishing product is not as immediately enjoyable at first (due to lack of top notes, it comes across as "dumb" or "shut down" or "shy, coy, inward, ...." ) but with aging (5-10-15 sometimes 20 years) they become remarkable.
**: in distillation of alcohol the distillate is divided in three categories of head, heart and tail. head comes first, tails last. and each section is very different in scent it gives but also texture).
to me without knowing for certain and only ASSUMING the distillation of agarwood oil and alcohol behaves the same or at least similarly, i would think these genre of oils are made by a looooooong low temp distillation, but also collecting a specific part of the oil (the first part). i am sure is not as simple as that and feed-back to the pot, etc. etc. likely employed but above would make sense to me. based on their colour, the scent, the body and structure of the oil as well as their evolution on the skin adn likely the way they age (perhaps wont really age and rather stay stable now to 10 years from now- only a gut feeling guess on my end-)
would be awesome if distillers could come out and say what it is they are doing, but is naive of me or us to think that. it is their noha. their secret. what gives them an edge. and they are using marketing as a tool to tell the story fo these oils without having to give up the entire technique. i would like to think if i was one i would do the same.
only thing that remains unclear to me is why then the makers of these oils hint at the above (i.e they have suggested or full on come out said these genre of oils are result of very loooong distillation and some have said beyond that they are a selection of the oil produced, as in making me imagine separating the oil in stages) but also go on and bring up the "oleoresin" into conversation. it is shared that these oils are the way they are b/c of having figured out a way to also get the oil trapped in the resin out. in other words, these oils are the way they are not just b/c of low temperaturee, long duration and selection of oil, but also due to the unique fingerprint of the quality of oil trapped in resin. it could very well be that these oils are result of all the above, but some of the science behind resin shared by Jawed and Faizal challenges that and i am not at a capacity and educated enough in this matter to be able to form my own view.
may be the latter (getting the oil trapped in resin) is not affecting the nose so much but only the volume. it is my udnerstanding that the two go hand in hand. as in oils that are poster childs of oleoresin, gen 3, whatever you wana call it, get higher yield b/c of conversion of resin to oil that otherwise would have ended up as waste or uncaptured.
many of these guesses and maybes and blindly navigating dark alleys could be avoided if the peer review and open discussion amongst those in trade would take place. it doesn't always have to ruffle feathers. wit benefit of the doubt, clear distinction between: i think vs i believe vs i know based on such and such, progress can be made while remaining respectful and not accusatory in words said. nothing wrong with me to come out and say i think producer XYZ wine is the way it is b/c i think (rather than know for certain) he or she purposely encouraged a hot ferment, vs. another statement that is factual b/c dozens and dozens of time x has yielded y. e.g. lees steering (mixing dead yeast particles after ferment is over) fills out the mid palate of a wine and also gives a sour bread dough, mineral, earthy flavor to the wine and increases the dry extract hence the mouthfeel of the wine. whats wrong with that? if not certain, come out and say so. if certain even then you can be on cautious side and say I am most (not entirely) certain...
i don't know, maybe i just being naive and a dreamer, but wouldn't that be awesome?
final words:
anyways, aside from all this technicality, i for one have an immediate love for these genre of oils and is understandable why. i find them super approachable and immediately very pretty. they are easy to understand, they are lithe, ethereal and easy to wear, yet the best ones have substance (heart/base). in other words many of the classic/traditional oils are not immediately enjoyable to me, but after some time on the skin, i see their brilliance and beauty. they are more demanding. but these genre of oils are either:
1) immediately enjoyable but not much further development, as in same note goes till the end and only eventually fades. no drama. hence no vertical complexity. there is time and place for these oils too. sometimes i want a pleasant scent that doesnt keep morphing and transforming and bending my mind. sometimes it is exhausting to wear traditional/classic (i still don't like either term but fail to find an appropriate one. modern vs tradition, new world vs old world is the way we discuss such differences in wine world but i also dont like that) cause they take a toll and cosntantly begging our attention to explore them to discover what new note has come to be...
for me the oils that humbly speaking fit 1) are EO JSL (not oleoresin poster child at all rather kyen), AA au luong, ayu,... (i like to acknowledge that human tendency to box up and categorize everything is flawed but yet necessary to help convey our experience to others who are not in our skin, in our head and heart. even these three oils are so different from one another and behave differently but i humbly see a more common thread between them than differences)
2) immediately enjoyable but also great an hour after, 4, 8 hours later... top to bottom beautiful. that is EO surirankah senkoh, sultan abdus selam to me and some of AA oils like lavanya, kekasihku.
as much as i love Sri pada, adhII (minus the tactile sensation on dry down for me), bustan, ruba'i and you know i love them and think highly of them, i cant imagine not ever again being able to smell the above genre of oils. vice versa also 100% applies. if all i had access to was these genre of oils and no ceen, bustan, viet zephyr.... it would indeed be sad.
in sum: variety is spice of life. the mood calls for different oils. i for one am happy to live in this era that still has super old school oils alive and being produced, while ultra avant garde ones also exist. this is reason to celebrate not fight.
