Oud, tea and what's in a name...
This is an excellent topic as there are many commonalities between oud oils and tea, namely the industries as a whole, differences in grade and how people enjoy and experience oud & tea.
Within the oud & tea industries there are many fakes, as well as dubious and unscrupulous behavior, especially with authentic oud oils from famous regions and famous teas such as Da Hong Pao and Ensar's specimen of Da Yu Ling, just to name a few. Agarwood is often taken from other regions to famous regions where they command a premium price, but you don't get what you think you're paying for. Same with teas, take Darjeeling tea which is governed by the Tea Board of India for example, it can only be grown on specific farms in very specific areas in the district of Darjeeling in the State of West Bengal, India; anything else is not Darjeeling tea. An excerpt from
Wiki states, "Adulteration and falsification are serious problems in the global tea trade; as of 2004, the amount of tea sold as Darjeeling worldwide every year exceeds 40,000 tonnes, while the annual tea production of Darjeeling itself is estimated at only 10,000 tonnes, including local consumption". Bottom line with both is that you have to do your due diligence, research and find trustworthy vendors.
Oud & teas have grades. Oud oils range from trash bin worthy oils to heirloom quality oils and oils that I know I'll never smell. Teas have grades like first flush Darjeeling, shincha Sencha and spring vs fall harvest. Also, different vendors have different relationships with farms, in turn some farms have been around longer and have more experience with growing, picking and processing teas resulting in higher grades of same cultivars relative to other farms. With oud & teas small increments in grade often lead to relatively larger increments in price. Once again, it is imperative to get to know your vendor.
People enjoy and experience oud & tea in similar ways. One may just put on any decent oud oil for fragrance while another sits quietly, wrist to nose studying and listening to an oil to pick up subtle, delicate nuances that separate one oil from another. Similarly, one may throw a tea bag in a cup of water, into the microwave for 2-3 minutes, beep and they're off to work. Another may sit quietly, gather their supplies, study their tea, look at it, sniff it, use proper ppm and pH water(Volvic is good), heat their cups and pot, measure their tea, heat the water to precise temperature and brew for precise times, pour and savor the tea to pick up subtle, delicate nuances that separate one tea from another.
@Ensar rather peculiar how one thing leads to another and how you mentioned Jing Shen Lu in your last post. I was studying your Da Yu Ling/Kinam Skin post and thought to myself, "I don't think this guy needs to drive or operate any heavy machinery after that combo". That led me to thinking about
Cha Qi, which led me to reading about Jing-Qi-Shen, when led me to recalling that you had an oil called Jing Shen Lu. I never put much thought into your naming methods other than to say that they do fit the oil, it appears that there is some method to your madness for what's in a name. Jing Shen Lu can be very, very loosely translated by me as, "The road to perfected spirit" or "The road to the essence of the soul". Then I checked out your Xiang Liao Ling and maybe that's the "primal spiciness" that you were talking about on the product page. In-ter-rest-ting. You're a special kind a groovy dude Saheb.
Last bits of O-Cha's Organic Kabusecha for me today.