Andrew Salkin

it's aboud time!
Staff member

I think the disconnect comes from there being a lot of exaggeration that happens between wood sold wholesale to resellers and wood then sold retail to consumers. Likely a lot more honesty happening in the wholesale markets, especially with long standing business relationships reliant on trust and continued business. The honesty here is more a necessity driven by the b2b transaction - between 2 people or entities who are likely both very educated/ experienced trading wood and having been around a while have "seen it all" it you will. Whereas wood being sold retail has the added pressure of retail competition and often involves marketing wood differently from how it was purchased wholesale. It also means selling wood one to many instead of 1 to 1, so there's less pressure from seller to keep 100% of repeat customers. I'm ok with a little fudging - it's why Im not running down to Mazda to tell them their 30mpg claim on my car is a sham lol. I'm not saying this happens all the time, but it's clear that it does with some regularity.

There's also grading within grading that doesn't always tell the story. Sure there are sinking grade chips but I think the uninformed buyer may think sinking says more than it really does. You could have a 6 gram piece of non sinking wood that when you really carve out all the bits of white wood so you are genuinely only left with the oud, maybe now it weighs less, but now it sinks. In this example, I'm sure the "grade" has now changed, but has the quality of the aromatic profile changed or improved so drastically to really leave sinking vs non-sinking as the only qualifying descriptors that "grade" that piece of wood? Idk

When I think of grade, I take into account a lot of things and generally try to take everything I read with a grain of salt. Honestly, there's a wealth of information to be gained from reading jings posts - and really digging deep into how the Chinese grade their oud bc it's done meticulously and with total ocd for more than just sinking or aaa aa, king, etc. There's a bunch stronger focus on the aroma, the resin formation, the cleaning, the density, the "grease" and oil saturation, and more.

I pretty regularly see wood that's essentially tree bark or really thin bits and dugga that sinks that's being sold using same marketing words folks like Jing uses for her sinking heartwoods. They are both being sold as sinking sure, and maybe to some buyers that's important to know. But both being sinking, they are still in entirely different leagues. So grading isn't just one word or descriptor imho.

As so many cultures grade wood differently, I'd think it could be informative to hear more about the grading methods you've been taught so we can all benefit from your subject matter knowledge. It's always good when we can work towards creating a more systematic way of evaluating our own wood - both wood we already own and wood we are considering buying. I can imagine everyone on this forum has at one point or another bought wood represented as one grade, only to feel uncomfortable to speak about our actual feelings after trying it. Or like me, I just had a super skewed understanding of woods grades until I started seeing more wood and being hypercritical of how vendors market wood. I'd prefer someone who consistently under represents the wood quality or simply let's raw photos, price, and reputation speak for themselves.

This next bit is just to show that I don't hold any punches. I love Dr incense for example. I've bought great wood from him - excellent. But I have had one singular purchase where I was sold tarakan. Both sinking and non sinking were purchased. The sinking is amazing but the non sinking isn't in my opinion even good for burning unless at the lowest possible heat setting on my sub. It's the kinda wood that would imho be better for grinding for incense sticks. This non sinking wood was marketed as bead carving waste and "premium" grade. So my expectations for these two qualifiers didn't synch up with my ultimate experience of it.

Curious if other people believe in grading but don't necessarily feel as retail buyers we are always getting the most accurate bios? On the same token, do any resellers find this happens to them as well?
 

Rahel

Resident Artisan
I think the disconnect comes from there being a lot of exaggeration that happens between wood sold wholesale to resellers and wood then sold retail to consumers. Likely a lot more honesty happening in the wholesale markets, especially with long standing business relationships reliant on trust and continued business. The honesty here is more a necessity driven by the b2b transaction - between 2 people or entities who are likely both very educated/ experienced trading wood and having been around a while have "seen it all" it you will. Whereas wood being sold retail has the added pressure of retail competition and often involves marketing wood differently from how it was purchased wholesale. It also means selling wood one to many instead of 1 to 1, so there's less pressure from seller to keep 100% of repeat customers. I'm ok with a little fudging - it's why Im not running down to Mazda to tell them their 30mpg claim on my car is a sham lol. I'm not saying this happens all the time, but it's clear that it does with some regularity.

There's also grading within grading that doesn't always tell the story. Sure there are sinking grade chips but I think the uninformed buyer may think sinking says more than it really does. You could have a 6 gram piece of non sinking wood that when you really carve out all the bits of white wood so you are genuinely only left with the oud, maybe now it weighs less, but now it sinks. In this example, I'm sure the "grade" has now changed, but has the quality of the aromatic profile changed or improved so drastically to really leave sinking vs non-sinking as the only qualifying descriptors that "grade" that piece of wood? Idk

When I think of grade, I take into account a lot of things and generally try to take everything I read with a grain of salt. Honestly, there's a wealth of information to be gained from reading jings posts - and really digging deep into how the Chinese grade their oud bc it's done meticulously and with total ocd for more than just sinking or aaa aa, king, etc. There's a bunch stronger focus on the aroma, the resin formation, the cleaning, the density, the "grease" and oil saturation, and more.

I pretty regularly see wood that's essentially tree bark or really thin bits and dugga that sinks that's being sold using same marketing words folks like Jing uses for her sinking heartwoods. They are both being sold as sinking sure, and maybe to some buyers that's important to know. But both being sinking, they are still in entirely different leagues. So grading isn't just one word or descriptor imho.

As so many cultures grade wood differently, I'd think it could be informative to hear more about the grading methods you've been taught so we can all benefit from your subject matter knowledge. It's always good when we can work towards creating a more systematic way of evaluating our own wood - both wood we already own and wood we are considering buying. I can imagine everyone on this forum has at one point or another bought wood represented as one grade, only to feel uncomfortable to speak about our actual feelings after trying it. Or like me, I just had a super skewed understanding of woods grades until I started seeing more wood and being hypercritical of how vendors market wood. I'd prefer someone who consistently under represents the wood quality or simply let's raw photos, price, and reputation speak for themselves.

This next bit is just to show that I don't hold any punches. I love Dr incense for example. I've bought great wood from him - excellent. But I have had one singular purchase where I was sold tarakan. Both sinking and non sinking were purchased. The sinking is amazing but the non sinking isn't in my opinion even good for burning unless at the lowest possible heat setting on my sub. It's the kinda wood that would imho be better for grinding for incense sticks. This non sinking wood was marketed as bead carving waste and "premium" grade. So my expectations for these two qualifiers didn't synch up with my ultimate experience of it.

Curious if other people believe in grading but don't necessarily feel as retail buyers we are always getting the most accurate bios? On the same token, do any resellers find this happens to them as well?
Wow! Thank you Andrew for your dissertation. I have to say the part that really resonated with me was this part (There's a bunch stronger focus on the aroma, the resin formation, the cleaning, the density, the "grease" and oil saturation, and more.) this paragraph really made me realise that biggest differences between knowledge from the Oriental side of the oud trade is far more open then compared to the Middle eastern Indian subcontinent side, which rarely ever opens to information sharing. The point I’m trying to make is that similar methods are used in the oud trade by Indian and Bengali oud traders. I’m currently writing up a Blog post about grading which everyone read on my website, but unfortunately it won’t have so much word porn because I’m not that eloquent when it comes to writing a 10,000 word dissertation, I’ll leave that to EO he’s the master at that.
 

PersonelHigh

True Ouddict
This next bit is just to show that I don't hold any punches. I love Dr incense for example. I've bought great wood from him - excellent. But I have had one singular purchase where I was sold tarakan. Both sinking and non sinking were purchased. The sinking is amazing but the non sinking isn't in my opinion even good for burning unless at the lowest possible heat setting on my sub. It's the kinda wood that would imho be better for grinding for incense sticks. This non sinking wood was marketed as bead carving waste and "premium" grade. So my expectations for these two qualifiers didn't synch up with my ultimate experience of it.
Just an echo in concert ~ I was just revisiting this premium wood yesterday the Tarakan from Dr Incense. It renders the word premium in this case useless.
 
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The Scent Guru

Agarwhoreder
Staff member
having 20 years experience in quality assurance and from a technical perspective, no. Unless there's a quantitative test, say per kilo 10 grams randomly destroyed and measured for oil/resin to pulp ratio or whatever, some form of quantitative testing like GCMS then it's all heresay.
 
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Rahel

Resident Artisan
having 20 years experience in quality assurance and from a technical perspective, no. Unless there's a quantitative test, say per kilo 10 grams randomly destroyed and measured for oil/resin to pulp ratio or whatever, some form of quantitative testing like GCMS then it's all heresay.
Hi the scent guru, was you referring to grading as hearsay?
 

iori

親月
Not all vendors grade the wood the same, I myself have been let down by some vendors grading while being pleasantly surprised by others
Buying sight unseen is alway risky unless you have a close relationship with your vendor
And the closer to the source the more variety in the quality usually.
It’s basically a trust issue so I agree
this is so true, same wood with 5 people, everyone have a grade for it, some exaggerate some underrate >.>
also not to mention the overuse of sinker/chunks grade "like it will automatically good if its sinker/chunk" how sad
 
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