Leyte Blue

Filipino agarwood is the new crassna. Like with Malaysian harvests, agarwood from the Philippines is being brought into barren oudlands like Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam to be sold as local.

Whatever you pay for oud wood straight from the jungles in, no matter if it’s Mindanau or up north, operation expenses double your costs. Despite the increasing costs, it’s still worth selling Filipino wood as wild Guallam because even if you were to find Guallam, it’ll cost you more.

That’s why everyone’s got their noses in slingshots working overtime to train their noses to know the Filipino oud smell. You don’t do this just to beat the cheaters selling them Filipino agarwood as Laosie or Vietnamese either…

The reason oud dealers are able to play the doppelganger games is because the Filipino profile is wonderfully diverse. Some areas mimic the Borneo aroma, others Indo-China, notably Vietnam and Cambodia (the latter also fetches a premium as a result.)

Some batches are cherry-dry like Kalimantan, some with a spicy Cambodi warmth, or red varieties of sinensis, while some parade wafts of curry stew I haven’t smelled before.

Then there’s the scent that’s unique to the Philippines that’s cooling, softly piercing blue-green as if the wallas of Ceylon grew old in Brunei’s oil-rich earth.

That what you’ll smell here.

Not everybody needs to pick up the subtle differences, of course. All you might want it for is to fumigate to your heart’s content. Priced and sliced for easy, frequent heating, Leyte Blue lets you snap off a sliver and bliss out to the scent’s petrichor freshness, oozing a resinous cool that, especially at low temp, will last you hours.

So, savor the scent as a benchmark, or for its narcotic, anxiolytic calm. Either way, this is oud wood at its finest.

If you want to get a raw look at Pinoy LTD, here you go.