This oud oil is dedicated to my wife…
The first thing I want to tell you about this agarwood oil is that I don’t have a clue when we made it.
I know where it was made, how it was made, and the raw agarwood that went into its making. But this is the singular batch among dozens of oud distillations in my depository where I forgot to put the date on the label. So, I can’t tell you if it’s been aged for 6, or 8, or 10 years….
What I can tell you is that this is one gem of an oud oil, superior even to Chen Xiang Qi. And that’s because it’s got that wizardly green of Vietnamese kyara vapor cranked just one notch higher than its sister distillation.
I know people who are into the Kodo tradition who say kyara isn’t about color. It’s about a ‘bitterness’ or a ‘flavor’ rather than a specific scent….
I’ve handled many chunks, nuggets, and even logs of kyara over the years. I’ve eaten kyara. I’ve drank what could possibly qualify as the only ‘kyara oil’ ever distilled as my tea. One of the biggest Kyara collectors in the Far East is a close friend….
To me, Kyara is first and foremost about color… an oiliness and almost waxy texture of agarwood that emanates nothing but the most addictive olfactory substance known. And that substance is GREEN.
The green I’m greeted with when I take a swipe of Kyara Sayang…………………..
It’s the green of sitting in the backseat of a taxicab taking you from the ginseng and oolong tasting room to the distillery in the Taiwanese countryside….
The green of oily refrigerated statues carved from hard solid blocks, and beaded bangles carved out of precious old Vietnamese stock ($150,000 for 8 or 9 mm beads)….
The green of walking into a room where the bitter numbing dust has been burning for hours on a hand-made low-heat solid walnut burner.
The green of listening to Chinese music at the funeral of my distiller’s best friend who’d drowned in the ocean. Roast duck and ripe fruit for his dead body, and a suitcase full of double super black agarwood bowling balls that my friend held between his legs as we waited, swaying to the lulling sounds of Chinese funeral music.
This oil is the ink of my autobiography. It smells of so many journeys, scenes and events and takes me back to so many places you wouldn’t believe the uncertainty and the trepidation involved in deciding to let go of it.
For all that, I’m taking it out of my depository today as the next olfactory jewel that I’d like to share with you.