plantation crassna

[Mr.P]

Have to say, I have just had it with the fuzzy weird sweet-sour pungent shrill plastic plantation crassna oils. I just revisited a 4 year aged 5% dilution of a budget Lao crassna i bought from olefaktory. Nothing wrong with the oil other than being young plantation crassna, it was a typical specimen, but nothing makes this kind of oil palatable to me - aging, blending, diluting... no idea what to do with them. Thailand and Laos seem to be the epicenter of these oils - if I never smell one of these again it will be too soon.

 

[roflwaffle]

Hmm. I think I know what you're talking about, but I wonder if it's not all plantation crassna but just certain regions or styles. Thailand regions are plentiful with variations imo. Can't much speak to laos. I don't think I've gotten it from Cambodian plantation crassnas, but I can't claim to be an expert there

But hopefully you can avoid the bulk of em pretty easily, doubt you're buying much cheap trat these days anyway

 

[Olfactory Nomad]

I know what you mean. I have a couple like this that I bought from an Etsy seller a few years ago. They have not improved one iota with age. I thought they might at the time but I've since learned better to expect this. Very linear as well.
Your comment also makes me think of the oud that is now available from the New Mountain Australian plantation. I haven't tried any so this is just an assumption and I am a bit curious to try an Australian grown oud but I'm pretty sure I already know what it's going to smell like and I ain't gonna like it. Very base and uninspiring. Who are these oils marketed for? Who's buying them and where is the bulk going? I find these questions more interesting than the oils themselves.

 

[roflwaffle]

Who are these oils marketed for? Who's buying them and where is the bulk going? I find these questions more interesting than the oils themselves.

It's certainly curious, though I have to imagine its not that complicated.. cheap land, and they've shown they can grow sandalwood as a high $/acre crop (though quintis or whatever filed for bankruptcy), so a small farm trying out a new crop that even if they don't yield best in the world, still yields a decent return is compelling either way.

I know if i could grow aquliaria in the US, I'd certainly plant a stand of them for the luls. I don't think they really have any 'bulk' yet, I think at least if memory serves, they've failed over and over and trees that even reach maturation have been super low % wise. Even plantation oud has an enormous market, and as wild oud is over harvested, poached, subject to deforestation in many areas, and generally not sustainable, it's not surprising that folks would see value in plantation.

Ajmal has vast plantations and if it wasn't viable for them, they wouldn't do it. 😀. As to where, prob just to the ME. I still wonder where all the chinese sinensis goes though, so its a fair question, 10 million trees, poof, and not found in the ME in any quantity, not found in commercial fragrances, and not a big oud oil culture in china excepting maybe CTM or some products i'm not aware of.

 

[Olfactory Nomad]

Someone is buying it! Maybe if we could attend some of those giant agarwood/scent expos in China that have just been on we'd have a better idea?

 

[hutou]

Have you considered the possibility that there might be a problem with OUD oil itself? I don't think there's a significant correlation between OUD oil production and the age of the trees, as the differences in the distilled components are limited. I also have some quite good Thai OUD essential oil. Young OUD trees are actually quite rare in Thailand. Considering the distillation costs, I don't think it's necessary to use those kinds of trees for distillation.

 

[Mr.P]

I know what you mean. I have a couple like this that I bought from an Etsy seller a few years ago. They have not improved one iota with age. I thought they might at the time but I've since learned better to expect this. Very linear as well.
Your comment also makes me think of the oud that is now available from the New Mountain Australian plantation. I haven't tried any so this is just an assumption and I am a bit curious to try an Australian grown oud but I'm pretty sure I already know what it's going to smell like and I ain't gonna like it. Very base and uninspiring. Who are these oils marketed for? Who's buying them and where is the bulk going? I find these questions more interesting than the oils themselves.

I occasionally see them get discussed with praise here by folks who have led me to great smelling things, which makes me think I've developed a sensitivity to some constituent in it as opposed to it smelling unpleasant universally. I have a similar reaction to most green khus as well - a hard material for me to enjoy. One of the things that made me so happy about the emergence of CK is it is sustainable (?) and on average less offensive to me and much more useful in perfume blending than equivalently priced or more expensive crassna.

I'm sure you're right about the Australian oil - it would be amazing if it had some unique richness

As to where it all goes, I can only guess but I would think it is probably blended into countless oud blends, maybe to stretch wild oils with a little more character or something? Mid priced mukhallats that are sophisticated enough to have a little bit of real oud? Touched up and sold for $$$?

I've never smelled any of the oud-trend commercial fragrances like Tom Ford etc. Maybe brands like this use a little bit of plantation oil and it ends up adding up to quite a lot when it's spread across the whole market… I would think it would be a little too expensive raw material to fit the budget of most commercial fragrances?

Admittedly I don't really know what I'm talking about so these are not strongly held beliefs that I have the ability to debate the reality of... I'm sure there are folks here with enough connection to the industry to have some insight and direct experience and it would be good to hear about that.

 

[roflwaffle]

don't think there's a significant correlation between OUD oil production and the age of the trees, as the differences in the distilled components are limited.

I think it's pretty well established in research papers and by members here that older infections are vastly different, aeromatically and chemically shown via gcms. Older trees, older infections on average, so I think you may be a little confused there? Not to say that fresher ones smell bad, but absolutely are chemically different than a 100 year old one...

 

[roflwaffle]

oud-trend commercial fragrances like Tom Ford etc. Maybe brands like this use a little bit of plantation oil and it ends up adding up to quite a lot when it's spread across the whole market… I would think it would be a little too expensive raw material to fit the budget of most commercial fragrances?

Few reasons this falls apart. Tom ford just has things compounded by the big houses, so they're using firmenish or givudan oud stock, not tiny Australian grower that just entered the market. Tom ford and the like also use basically the minimal legal amount of oud to be able to say it contains oud, and most of the oud smell in their fragrances are from common oud extender or adjacent perfumery. And the Australian place just had its first viable tiny crop this year, so tom ford scale couldn't use em anyway. Even just bog standard plantation crassna, since there is variation, and Tom ford scale requires scale and repeatability batch to batch, aren't a good fit. No established perfumery house is going to use a product that just had their first crop, and no certainty of more or repeatability of scent batch to batch

Just to say, even a wild oud wouldn't change the price. Assafi and that type is generally what's chosen for consistency, and legal certification, and it's fairly spendy.

$200/g assafi. 100ml perfume. 15% is concentrate, 0.1% of that is oud

0.015g of $200 oud is $2

Maybe a bit high for Tom ford, but maybe they're using something a bit cheaper, I'm sure firemenish has a slightly cheaper variant for known penny pinchers like tom ford.

They've also softened their claims in recent years, no longer actually claiming any real oud content at all. Just 'oud notes' or 'agarwood aroma' which fools a lot of people, so tom ford specifically, the number is likely to be 0 now

Tom Ford Oud Wood Fragrance Investigation - M&R

Migliaccio & Rathod LLP is investigating whether Tom Ford Oud Wood and related Tom Ford fragrances are marketed in a way that may mislead consumers about

classlawdc.com

I think you're right that it's prob going into mukhallats and the like. Cheap plantation, or general ME market. But as there was less than 2000 trees planted by wescorp, and like I said, most died, their plantation is like. too small to really scale, total yield of like 10 gallons type scale at least at present

 

[MaxFromHolland]

I know what you mean. I have a couple like this that I bought from an Etsy seller a few years ago. They have not improved one iota with age. I thought they might at the time but I've since learned better to expect this. Very linear as well.
Your comment also makes me think of the oud that is now available from the New Mountain Australian plantation. I haven't tried any so this is just an assumption and I am a bit curious to try an Australian grown oud but I'm pretty sure I already know what it's going to smell like and I ain't gonna like it. Very base and uninspiring. Who are these oils marketed for? Who's buying them and where is the bulk going? I find these questions more interesting than the oils themselves.

I bought several oils from different countries and regions on etsy before i learned not to. They all smell different yet all smell the same.
Think its a big market, those platforms and plenty of online and real western stores selling that kind of oil. They seem to have happy customers, which also makes sense if you know not better than thats what oud smells like. Similar to there being plenty of happy customers for tins of tomato soup, they either dont know or dont care..

 

[hutou]

I think it's pretty well established in research papers and by members here that older infections are vastly different, aeromatically and chemically shown via gcms. Older trees, older infections on average, so I think you may be a little confused there? Not to say that fresher ones smell bad, but absolutely are chemically different than a 100 year old one...

My friend is a PhD researcher of OUD oil. He even frequently distills OUD himself in the lab as samples. We often discuss these kinds of issues, and I myself often look at the GCMS of OUD oil. We both find it difficult to determine tree age from the GCMS of the distilled oil. Different pathogens can cause variations in GCMS, but these differences require a batch average; individual data are not very meaningful. Considering the limited amount of components distilled, the variation in OUD oil is not as significant as one might imagine. As far as I know, Thai plantations have no shortage of high-quality, mature OUD trees. In fact, OUD trees that have produced resin for one year can already yield good OUD oil. I can't understand why young trees would be used for distillation.

 

[Olfactory Nomad]

I bought several oils from different countries and regions on etsy before i learned not to. They all smell different yet all smell the same.
Think its a big market, those platforms and plenty of online and real western stores selling that kind of oil. They seem to have happy customers, which also makes sense if you know not better than thats what oud smells like. Similar to there being plenty of happy customers for tins of tomato soup, they either dont know or dont care..

Yes, I agree. There will always be plenty of people who are happy with standard "whatever". I sometimes forget how niche we are here on Ouddict. The New Mountain oil isn't cheap either. They're offering two versions. Refined and unrefined. The refined version is $230 AU for 2g! The unrefined is not much better. I won't be getting any at that price, even just to sample. Mind you that's retail but still. I got into a bit of a debate with some company on FAcebook a couple of weeks ago. They're selling an oud scented body butter. The whole add for this body butter is all about the oud. So I checked the ingredients list...zero oud. I messaged them about this saying how can this be labelled as an oud based product without any real oud in it and they said that there was oud in the formula but none in the body butter but it's being sold as an oud product? Can someone explain to me what this means as they wern't very forthcoming.

 

[roflwaffle]

My friend is a PhD researcher of OUD oil. He even frequently distills OUD himself in the lab as samples. We often discuss these kinds of issues, and I myself often look at the GCMS of OUD oil. We both find it difficult to determine tree age from the GCMS of the distilled oil. Different pathogens can cause variations in GCMS, but these differences require a batch average; individual data are not very meaningful. Considering the limited amount of components distilled, the variation in OUD oil is not as significant as one might imagine. As far as I know, Thai plantations have no shortage of high-quality, mature OUD trees. In fact, OUD trees that have produced resin for one year can already yield good OUD oil. I can't understand why young trees would be used for distillation.

I'd have to check my collection of research papers. Got a paper published by your friend I can read through? I have a wide collection of GCMS from various ouds, but its been awhile since i've reviewed either, so possibly I am misremembering. Don't believe so, else it would mean that true kyara 100 year old was the same as young trees 😉. But much ink has been spent on the topic, and I'd be happy to read your friends published research!

Everything I've seen from interviews and data around Thai plantations, they all generally harvest around the same tree age, I've never heard of one sitting on 50 year old trees. Yes, one year of resin production can yield quantity, but that was not really the issue or question 😉

Thanks! send that reseaerch over!

 

[Mr.P]

Yes, I agree. There will always be plenty of people who are happy with standard "whatever". I sometimes forget how niche we are here on Ouddict. The New Mountain oil isn't cheap either. They're offering two versions. Refined and unrefined. The refined version is $230 AU for 2g! The unrefined is not much better. I won't be getting any at that price, even just to sample. Mind you that's retail but still. I got into a bit of a debate with some company on FAcebook a couple of weeks ago. They're selling an oud scented body butter. The whole add for this body butter is all about the oud. So I cheked the ingredients list...zero oud. I messaged them about this saying how can this be labelled as an oud based product without any real oud in it and they said that there was oud in the formula but none in the body butter but it's being sold as an oud product? Can someone explain to me what this means as they wern't very forthcoming

MERCHANDIZING!

 

[hutou]

I'd have to check my collection of research papers. Got a paper published by your friend I can read through? I have a wide collection of GCMS from various ouds, but its been awhile since i've reviewed either, so possibly I am misremembering. Don't believe so, else it would mean that true kyara 100 year old was the same as young trees 😉. But much ink has been spent on the topic, and I'd be happy to read your friends published research!

Everything I've seen from interviews and data around Thai plantations, they all generally harvest around the same tree age, I've never heard of one sitting on 50 year old trees. Yes, one year of resin production can yield quantity, but that was not really the issue or question 😉

Thanks! send that reseaerch over!

He has not conducted any research on the age of trees, but their team often receives some commissioned tests, such as wild and tree age. They will all refuse this kind of test, because it is almost impossible to judge. My friend's research direction is kynam, and he has also done oud essential oil ageing research. I often test some high-priced samples myself. If you have different gcms about the ageing of the tree for distillation, you can show it to me, because I haven't found it.

 

[roflwaffle]

He has not conducted any research on the age of trees, but their team often receives some commissioned tests, such as wild and tree age. They will all refuse this kind of test, because it is almost impossible to judge. My friend's research direction is kynam, and he has also done oud essential oil ageing research. I often test some high-priced samples myself. If you have different gcms about the ageing of the tree for distillation, you can show it to me, because I haven't found it.

I wonder if maybe we are crossing paths -- my point was that old infection's differ chemically than a young one, and continue to change into decades, and i wonder if you are caught up or intending to state that one cannot perfectly tell the age of a tree based on one infection? I do not believe that one can tell a trees age from one random infection, nor that one could tell definitively between a 45 yr and a 50 year infection via gcms, Its not carbon dating, only that there is significant gcms noted differences between a 1-3 year infection and a 20 year, and different at 50 year, etc, and differentiation is clear at course granularity... (from memory, again, maybe I misremember 😀.. anything is possible, as i dont have perfect memory, swear i have a paper or two that cover it though.)

In any case, I'll dig through and post sources when i get a free moment.

 

[MaxFromHolland]

I wonder if maybe we are crossing paths -- my point was that old infection's differ chemically than a young one, and continue to change into decades, and i wonder if you are caught up or intending to state that one cannot perfectly tell the age of a tree based on one infection? I do not believe that one can tell a trees age from one random infection, nor that one could tell definitively between a 45 yr and a 50 year infection via gcms, Its not carbon dating, only that there is significant gcms noted differences between a 1-3 year infection and a 20 year, and different at 50 year, etc, and differentiation is clear at course granularity...

In any case, I'll dig through and post sources when i get a free moment.

https://spd.globaltimbertrackingnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Chenetal_2017_Distinguish-Wild-from-Cultivated-HPLC-.pdf

 

[hutou]

I wonder if maybe we are crossing paths -- my point was that old infection's differ chemically than a young one, and continue to change into decades, and i wonder if you are caught up or intending to state that one cannot perfectly tell the age of a tree based on one infection? I do not believe that one can tell a trees age from one random infection, nor that one could tell definitively between a 45 yr and a 50 year infection via gcms, Its not carbon dating, only that there is significant gcms noted differences between a 1-3 year infection and a 20 year, and different at 50 year, etc, and differentiation is clear at course granularity...

In any case, I'll dig through and post sources when i get a free moment.

The difference is more reflected in the high temperature of oud.The distilled oud oil is not obvious enough.

 

[hutou]

https://spd.globaltimbertrackingnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Chenetal_2017_Distinguish-Wild-from-Cultivated-HPLC-.pdf

Many people send their agarwood to the team that wrote this paper for testing to determine if it's wild-grown, but they all refuse because there are no significant distinguishing features, especially in OUD oil. This paper focuses on agarwood extract, not distilled OUD. As I mentioned, wild OUD has a longer resin formation time, resulting in a higher concentration of chromones, which leads to noticeable differences in high-temperature environments. However, the differences are not significant in distilled OUD oil.

 

[MaxFromHolland]

Many people send their agarwood to the team that wrote this paper for testing to determine if it's wild-grown, but they all refuse because there are no significant distinguishing features, especially in OUD oil. This paper focuses on agarwood extract, not distilled OUD. As I mentioned, wild OUD has a longer resin formation time, resulting in a higher concentration of chromones, which leads to noticeable differences in high-temperature environments. However, the differences are not significant in distilled OUD oil.

Think that depends on whether it is a commercial production distillation or artisan slow process that allows at least a good part of the heavy components to distill over (chromones 300+ hrs). I wouldn't know how else a good nose can tell the difference.