I have always found the whole 'species' classification to be more of a handicap than anything else. My biggest reservation with it is, I highly doubt much of it is correct. Like, how can you say Vietnam is predominantly crassna when Vietnamese oud is so distinct to Thai & Cambodian? The species classification, in this case, causes more confusion than it explains anything. It would make you think that other factors, like soil composition and strain of fungus attacking the tree, are more relevant to the oleoresin than the type of tree producing it. Which is totally counter-intuitive.
I would have thought Vietnam to be predominantly Sinensis, just because of the prevalence of kyara-bearing trees in Vietnam historically. Yet the 'scientific' facts tell us otherwise, as Kruger pointed out. Taxonomists have only identified aquilaria crassna and baneonsis in Vietnam. Go figure! Either the science is totally wrong, or the way we think about these trees is completely misguided. Case in point: Kyara. If Vietnam was predominantly crassna, you'd find the same prevalence and concentration of Kyara-bearing trees in Thailand as you do in Vietnam. But you don't. The only other locale with a similar concentration of kyara was South China, Hainan particularly. And here you have aquilaria sinensis as the predominant species.
So one of two things: either kyara formation is not species-specific, and is more dependent on soil composition and other factors – or the trees of Vietnam are a completely different 'type' of aquilaria crassna – which also renders species categorization rather useless.
Yet another way to look at it. Suppose Vietnamese agarwood – the very best of it – is indeed sinensis. How can we explain the fact that it smells completely different to the sinensis harvested in Yunnan, Hainan, Hong Kong? Either the breakdown into species is too broad to provide any useful information (locale-specific categorization is a lot more useful, for all practical purposes), or other ecosystem-relevant factors are more pertinent.
Suosday from Cambodia!
Well, I just booked a bunch of Koh Kong Crassna to take back with me to cook, but unexpectedly also stumbled upon some extremely unusual species of agarwood from the mountain range in Kampot. Its pretty much the equivalent of Malaysian/South Thai Candan (incidentally also mountain oud). Never smelled something like this before, really, the best way to describe it would be that its related to Cambodian Crassna the same way the Malaysian Candan aroma is related to Malaysian Gaharu. Now I'm tempted to juice this wood as well!
And so I thought, what better time than this, to explain my take on the whole species thing...
Like you, I find the whole species thing highly pretentious and useless for the most part. I have found a few exceptions though, and aside from myself, frankly I don't see why anyone else would find it useful in the least bit. Here are some exmples why I find categorization by species to be useful:
1) some Arab clients insist on Candan wood and nothing but. Show them even the sweetest south Pahangi or zestiest most vibrant Kelantani wood, and they shake their heads with firm disapproval. For the majority of my wood clients, nothing but 2 subcategories of Candan will do (only the Saudis want large Gaharu pieces), and reaction to the third type is lukewarm.
2) some of my oil customers love only certain types of Borneo Gaharu oils (e.g. Beccariana) and not most (e.g. Malaccensis), and love most of the majority of other types (Cabut, Candan 1, Candan 2, Candan3). Most of them are just referred to by name as either just Candan (without any distinction being made between them, despite differences in aroma - sometimes huge), or by their local names, which differ from tribe to tribe - and frankly, I don't remember most of those names. It gets even more confusing when the same species has multiple names, depending on the sub-tribe and locale the hunters are from.
3) for me, different species have vastly different distillation parameters. You'll recall our discussion about how to "reduce" the internal capacity of pots when you were visiting. And if you recall, it was in the context of none other than for the purpose of running small trial batches for determining baseline yield, baseline aroma etc (to determine what tweaks need to be implemented, e.g. yield boosting).
How do all these tie in?
For me, categorization is extremely important. It could be Latin, Bahasa, Dayak... doesn't really matter. I decided to stick with the Latin species names.
It allows me to create drawers of data (and neat little meaningful 'label stickers' i.e. the species names
), which helps with organization. For wood clients, it allows me to blind-sell to customers whose exact tastes I have learned. When the hunters bring back species X I know who to ring up, and when its species Y it'll be another guy.
As for making oils, then it allows me to decide on distillation parameters (and avoid disasters like $3,000-$10,000/bottle oils) by knowing what works for what species, and what destroys what species.
Case in point: I will never distill a Filaria oil like the 'thaqeel' that you smelled, even though the same parameters work amazingly well with Gyrinops (a species that is possibly the closest to Filaria). Smelled great, no doubt, but I'd be running a charity if I cooked Filaria like that!
Back to the Kampot wood. My gut feeling is that the wood is more similar to Hirta, or Microcarpa, or Cabut (don't know the Latin name
), and hence I shouldn't open my Crassna drawer for distilling this. It'll have to be one of the former drawers, or to be even more precise: run a trial batch and then create an entirely new drawer for this.
Bottom line: as far as customers are concerned, I think it only helps if it allows them to pounce on/avoid species they really like/dislike. Beyond that, the specie name is about as relevant as the name of the hunters who brought down the tree.
Regarding the species in Vietnam, hmm...
Well, South Vietnamese trees are supposed to look an awful lot like Cambodian Crassna trees and as for Northern Vietnamese trees I don't know. But I have found that the northern ones are more bittersweet and scent-neutral (like Chinese) whereas the southern ones are more fruity (not unlike Khao Yai/Khmer Crassna). I have never worked directly with a Vietnamese hunter (I'm sure its a defunct job title in Vietnam now! Well, aside from the ground diggers who are searching for buried kinam trees), so my guess is as good as anyone else's. For all I know, it could all be just one specie with varying scent profiles due to topography/climate/soil composition. Or, for all I know, it could be tons of species.
