One company hopes to turn the tide on the endangered agarwood by making the trade sustainable, writes Aznim Ruhana Md Yusup
“Sudah gaharu cendana pula
Sudah tahu bertanya pula”
The first two lines of this old Malay poem refers to agarwood (gaharu) and sandalwood (cendana), two intense scents from local trees that will probably blow you away when worn together.
The second line refers to a person who asks what he already knows.So with an over-the-top odour and a penchant for obvious questions, it’s double dose of annoyance.
But I digress. With regards to agarwood, the poem is an indication of how the scent has long been favoured among the Malays. Agarwood is also used in traditional medicine to treat aches and pains and as a tonic for pregnant women.
While native to Southeast Asia and parts of South Asia, agarwood is also prevalent in the Middle East, where it was introduced by traders and has been part of the culture for 2,000 years.
Known as oud in Arabic, the oil is used as perfume by both men and women. The wood chips are burnt to create an aromatic smoke.
Away from this traditional base, oud has become mainstream. Tom Ford pioneered the use of oud in contemporary fragrance when he was creative director of Yves Saint Laurent with the release of M7 for men in 2002. Today, the likes of Gucci and Christian Dior all have perfumes with oud.
But with such immense popularity, it is no surprise that agarwood is becoming rare and endangered in the wild.
Since 2004, all agarwood species have been placed under Appendix II by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites), which means that all trade in agarwood is strictly controlled to ensure it doesn’t become extinct.
It is not uncommon to find news reports of poachers encroaching into protected forest and cutting down agarwood trees. Under the National Forestry Act 1984, those caught face a maximum fine of RM50,000 or a five-year jail sentence or both upon conviction.
The difficulty comes not so much in finding the tree itself but to get one that is infected with a fungus inside the trunk that gives it the much sought-after aroma. A healthy fungus-free tree is practically useless for fragrance-making.
In the wild, it is estimated that only seven out of 100 agarwood trees are infected. But because there is no way of telling whether a tree is infected or not as it grows in the jungle, all agarwood trees are chopped down, leading to its scarcity.
SOIL TO OIL
One way to stop the indiscriminate felling is to plant agarwood trees in farms. And to ensure that the trees contain the precious fungus, they are inoculated with an organic compound to create the infection artificially.
Asia Plantation Capital (APC) has been doing this since 2002. It has vast agarwood estates in Thailand and Sri Lanka, and is about to embark on a similar project here.
On its cards are at least three plantations in the peninsula, covering a total area of about 324 to 405 hectares. It expects to begin operations in the first quarter of 2015.
“We’re not only going to be planting trees,” says Steve Watts, Asia Plantation Capital’s CEO for Malaysia. “We’ll set up quite a large R&D operation as well to try out the different inoculation methods.”
“There are lots of ways of inoculating the tree. The basic method is using a big syringe, but there’s the pellet gun method where you fire into the bark of the tree with a bullet. Some people would go down, from the root, to infect tree.”
At APC, the trees are inoculated when they are 4 years old and harvested three years later. The company says it has a 100 per cent success rate in getting the trees infected, unlike only seven per cent in
the wild. “There are many agarwood trees here. But the people growing them don’t have the inoculation methods,” says Watts.
Once it is cut down, one can see that the infected tree is quite stained around the core of the trunk. This dark wood is chopped into small pieces before they are steamed and distilled in large vats to extract the oil.
“At the moment we’re getting oil from the main trunk of the tree but we need to be able to get oil from the branches as well, so that’s an ongoing process.”
Meanwhile, the rest of the tree that isn’t dark wood still contains a certain amount of fragrance so it is used to make incense or aromatherapy sticks. Scientists also utilise this part of the tree to study agarwood’s medicinal potential.
“Eighty-three trees will give you about a litre of oil,” says Watts. “And that’s valued at around US$50,000 (RM168,000).”
He explains that the different species of agarwood trees grown in different countries can produce different smelling oils of differing qualities, but this is quite subjective. “You get people growing trees in India saying their oil is the best, people in Cambodia saying theirs is the best and so on.”
For him, what’s important is that the oil has the correct density, with a scent that lasts.
It must also be easily used and adapted. He explains that while there are people who would wear agarwood oil on its own, it’s more common to mix it with other scents as part of a fragrance.
CERTIFIED
APC supplies its oils to various perfume manufacturers around the world but its sister company, Fragrance Du Bois, uses agarwood oil exclusively from APC for its range of oud-based perfumes.
“There are only so many notes in the world that you can use in a fragrance, and they’ve all been done,” says brand director Nicola Parker. “What oud does is change those notes slightly and give them a different angle.”
“It’s almost like you’ve got a whole new array of fragrances because of the oud. That is what makes it so exciting, and we’ve only just started scratching the surface.”
Parker is proud to note that Fragrance Du Bois is likely the only fragrance company that can say with certainty where their oud comes from, and that it has been sourced legally and sustainably.
“The perfume industry is quite secretive. Some companies may say they use real oud but it’s actually synthetic. Or if you’re not careful, there’s a huge chance you could be using black market oud from trees that are being cut down illegally.”
Both APC and Fragrance Du Bois, their products have to travel with a Cites certificate. This applies to the oil and wood chips, and even the big agarwood branches that are used as decoration in the boutique at Starhill Gallery in Kuala Lumpur.
COLOURFUL SCENTS
From the gleaming black and gold store, Fragrance Du Bois offers a signature collection of eight perfumes. The perfumes are named after colours, and you can take a whiff by lifting the gold cloches for an all-round smell sensation.
The intensity of oud in each perfume varies. One that is called Violet is perhaps the closest to the original thing as it has the most amount of oud. Another one called Bleu is less so, as it contains ginger and cardamom notes.
Parker says both men and women can wear its perfumes but the effect will not be the same. “Steve and I could probably wear the same fragrance and it would actually smell different. Fragrance does behave that way with different skin.
A 50ml perfume retails for RM1,525 (RM2,550 for 100ml). Fragrance Du Bois also has a bespoke perfume-making service. For US$12,000 (RM40,000) and several consultation sessions with a French perfumer, you can get a unique, tailor-made fragrance just for you.