Friend called and the conversation went like : AHHHHH!!! HELP!!! I think I just saw a huge chunk of kyara, probably 1 kilogram , and the trader doesn’t know!! Me : What’s the price? Friend : Not confirmed, but possibly below $50 per gram Me : Then WHAT are you waiting for ?!?!??! Friend :… [Read More…]
Agarwood beads
Agarwood beads are amongst the hardest to verify amongst all agarwood related products., This is due to the way the beads are made, spun, polished etc. The ultimate way to verify a bead, is just to split it into half, check the grain, resination, and to heat it on a heater at various temperatures. But… [Read More…]
Cultivated Agarwood
Agarwood plantations are common all throughout South East asia today. Some plantations are beginning to reap the fruits of what they had planted a decade ago, and have pushed out a myriad of intriguing agarwood products such as agarwood leaf tea, agarwood cookies, agarwood flavoured instant noodles, wood chips, oils, soaps etc. The strange… [Read More…]
Cardio-protective properties of Agarwood
The cardio-protective properties of Agarwood(particularly Kynam) had been recorded in chinese medical literature for many centuries, with written accounts from many historical chinese physicians. In the traditional Chinese/Han medicine that Japan practices, there is a fabled 速效救心丹 (cardiac rescue pill) that uses kynam as one of its key ingredients. Traditional chinese medicine users in Hainan… [Read More…]
Impressions of the Ranjatai
Several incense houses in Japan have been known to create blended incense sticks based on their impression of the Ranjatai through Mon-koh. Small fragments of the Ranjatai are known to be in possession of descendants of kodo masters and big incense companies, from which they draw inspiration into crafting a representative incense based on the… [Read More…]
Milling your own agarwood powder
Most of the agarwood powders on the market are generally made from ground up post-distilled agarwood chips, thus missing a large and important proportion of olfactory notes that could have existed in the non-distilled agarwood chips. As decent quality agarwood chips are expensive, powders made from these chips are just as expensive, if… [Read More…]