Age of the infection
I am a big fan of Kyarazen; he is knowledgeable and experienced about agarwood/ kyara yet remains humble. He wrote:
"Does the age of the agarwood tree matter??!!
Actually….. the age of the infection/resination is the most important, not particularly the age of the tree."
The image below was from a WILD BORNEO AGARWOOD provided by my supplier, which would be making beads and wood chips.
You could detect the raw fragrance from this wood before burning it. Some notes include sweet, woody, herbaceous.
The amount of white wood (mostly fibre) is quite low in this tree, means that any part could be used either making beads or incenses to obtain the highest value (oil distillation is not enough as the material is insufficient)
Let's look at the cultivated one.
Obviously, cultivated agarwood is inferior to wild one by the following:
| Wild Agarwood | Cultivated Agarwood | |
| Years of infection | depending, but the above picture (wild) is more than 10 years (source: experienced hunter) | Around 8-10 years to grow the tree and 2 years of infection before being harvested. |
| Wounded by | Nature factors untouched by human. Either stuck by lightening or wounded by bugs and fungus. | Human: by bamboo stick with biological yeast or ants or chemical which are tested before applying in mass. Trees could be dead after inoculated making a 10 year wasted, however, with better technology from research and development providing future sustainable supplies. |
| Number of trees | Rare and limited, close to extinction | Unlimited, as many plantation in Asia region. |
| Fragrance (mainly from the resin) |
Complex, last longer, lingering after a period of time. Differences in the aroma of agarwood, which occur |
Not as sophisticated as the wild one, pleasant smell but dissipated quickly. If you same type of Aquilaria and same inoculation method, the fragrance would be similar |
With new farming technology, research and development recently showed that some cultivated wood chip is quite close to the wild one. Good news, the holy scent is being revived, could occasionally use without harming the environment.
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