Agarwood knowledge
12 things you have to know about agarwood benefits. Why agarwood is so expensive
Jan
For thousands of years, agarwood has been known as “The Wood of the Gods.” First-grade agarwood can cost as much as $100,000 per kilogram, making it one of the most expensive raw materials in the world. But for this tree to produce any agarwood, it must first become infected with mold. So, how does this infection process work? What is agarwood used for? And what makes it so valuable? What are agarwood benefits?
Table of Contents
1. What is agarwood
Deep in a Far Eastern jungle, an evergreen tree is attacked by fungus-carrying insects that bore into the tree. Much like our bodies’ immune system produces white blood cells, the tree starts producing a substance to combat the infection. Over the years, the infection grows – as does the substance the tree produces. This is oud, or agarwood. When it is distilled, oud oil is derived.
There are few natural aromatics that have as complex a scent spectrum as oud. Natural ambergris, musk and sandalwood also rank as some of the most valuable natural fragrances, but none come close to oud in the sheer transcendence and sublimity its fragrance boasts. More than just a scent, oud can be mentally and spiritually engaging. In fact, ouds from different regions also seem to have different effects on a person’s emotions. Indonesian oils induce joy and frivolity, while Vietnam oils have a deeply pacifying quality which makes them popular for using when meditating.
Read more: What is Agar wood? The use of Agarwood and benefits of burning incense
2. Agarwood Benefits of Health
Agarwood helps to increases appetite by acting on gastric juices and liver functions. It helps in abdominal distension and helps releasing wind from the intestines. Thus, it also decreases abdominal pain and cramps that occur due to excess gas in the alimentary canal.
1. Works as antidepressants
Agarwood leaves work as anti-depressants. Leaves consist of agarospirol which serves as anti-depressants. It helps to depress the central nervous system that causes tension and restore physical fitness.
2. Agarwood benefits: Can be as anti-aging skin
Agarwood leaves can also be as anti-aging skin. Agar wood leaf tea is used to remove mercury in the body, thus decreasing the risk of mercury neurological disorders and can prevent skin aging. When toxic mercury in the body can be removed with agar wood leaf tea, it makes skin healthy and free of blemishes or skin aging.
3. Agarwood benefits: Helps to lose weight
Agarwood leaves helps to lose unwanted body weight. If you are overweight, you can consume the tea of Agarwood leaf. This has been proven to help you lose weight. You can consume six cups of Agarwood leaf tea every day to get the beneficial outcomes.
4. Soothe sleep disorders
Agarwood leaf can also soothe sleep disorders. Tea of Agarwood leaf, have effects that help to soothe and reduce the symptoms of stress, so that you can sleep calmly and longer.
5. Agarwood benefits: Add energy
Agarwood leaves can also add energy. You can consume the tea of Agarwood leaf regularly. When you consume tea of Agarwood leaf regularly it helps to increase the quantity to urinate which shows that the Agarwood leaf tea works in the body. Flushing when detoxification occurs as a result of Agarwood leaf tea which also lubricates the stomach.
12 Agarwood Benefits that You Should Know
1. Agarwood benefits – Medicine:
Agarwood is prescribed in traditional East Asian medicine to promote the flow of qi, relieve pain, arrest vomiting by warming the stomach, and to relieve asthma
High-grade agarwood powder is prescribed in Chinese medicine (Yaacob, 1999).
High grade agarwood powder is also used in the production of pharmaceutical tinctures (Heuveling van Beek and Phillips, 1999).
2. Agarwood benefits – use as Liniment:
Malaysians use agarwood mixed with coconut oil as a liniment. Likewise Indians and chinese also use agarwood oil in their traditional medicine as a liniment for the treatment of various skin diseases. (Burkill (1966))
3. Rheumatism:
Agarwood oil is used in a boiled concoction to treat rheumatism and other body pain. Often-discarded uninfected wood is used as Kayu gaharu lemppong by Malaysians to treat jaundice and body pains.
4. Smallpox and Abdominal Pain:
Agarwood has been noted for its use as a complex ointment for smallpox and for various abdominal complaints. (1930, cited in Chakrabarty et al., 1994)
5. Agarwood benefits – improve Pleurisy:
Its use for the treatment of pleurisy is referenced in the Ayurvedic medicinal text the Susruta Samhita.
6. Agarwood benefits are: improve Nervous System Disorders
When used in aromatherapy, agarwood oil may help to treat anxiety, stress, depression and other nervous system disorders.
7. Liver and Kidney:
Agarwood oil is used to treat cirrhosis of the liver and kidney problems.
8. Lung and Stomach Tumours:
Agarwood oil is used in the treatment of lung and stomach tumours.
9. Carminative Diuretic:
Agarwood oil is also used a carminative diuretic.
10. In The Indian Council, Agarwood benefits are:
Agarwood is considered stimulant, antiasthmatic, carminative, tonic, aphrodisiac and astringent. It is used in diarrhoea, dysentery, gout, rheumatism and paralysis.
11. The Cropwatch Organisation:
The Cropwatch Organisation similarly lists acknowledged merits of agarwood in Asian medical praxis as “warming,” “to relieve stuck energy particularly in the digestive and respiratory systems,” “to alleviate pain,” and “balancing effects” on “nervous and emotional disorders.”
12. Agarwood benefits – Miscellaneous:
The oud oil is used to treat illness during and after childbirth; to relieve spasms especially in the digestive and respiratory systems, abdominal pain, asthma, cancer, colic, chest congestion, diarrhea, hiccups, nausea, nerves and treatment of regurgitation
Agarwood is also prescribed for dropsy, as a carminative, a stimulant, for heart palpitations, and as a tonic taken particularly during pregnancy, after childbirth and for diseases of female genital organs
What affects the value of Agarwood?
The amount and quality of the oil inside the wood gives the Agarwood different scents leading to different selling prices. Oil inside the Agarwood wood is influenced by its origin, period of formation, where does Agarwood accumulated in the tree (stems, branches, roots), the formation process (tree alive, or a dead tree), …
How many types of agarwood are there?
Agarwood has many types because they are dominated by many different factors. Currently, there is no official standard measure to evaluate Agarwood. Agarwood chips currently consists of 3 different types (Natural Chips, Premium Chips, Premium Plus Chips). We have enough quantity of these 3 types to provide in a long time with quite stable quality. We also have a few special types for customers wishing to enjoy the aroma of the higher quality Agarwood.
Could agarwood be faked?
Agarwood is a special kind of wood, and some types have a higher price than gold. This attracts many people, who have spent a lot of time to study the way to benefit from Agarwood in an improper way. Many pieces of poor quality Agarwood have been added in color, chemical enhance the scent or lower quality Agarwood oil to look like premium one.
Techniques of counterfeiting or increasing the value of Agarwood are more and more sophisticated, many people with long experience in the industry can still misjudge the quality of incense. The sad thing is that quite a lot of the Agarwood sold in the market has been created this way.
What factors affect the color and smell of the bracelet when we use it?
As mentioned in the above sections, the aroma of the wood is affected by heat. You can rub your hands into a deep loop or rub against the skin to help the bracelet spread smell. The natural element of each person is different, so when wearing the bracelet, the gloss and aroma of the wood grain will be different on different users.
Quite a few types of Agarwood sold today have been added with deep oil and other chemicals to make the beautiful wood grain more colorful and fragrant when smelling.
AGARWOOD PRICES IN THE CURRENT MARKET
Agarwood prices on the market today have many different prices, Depending on the quality, agarwood benefits, shape and smell of the product. Types of Agarwood include: Agarwood chips, Agarwood chunks powder, incense, Oil, etc., sold at different prices. Currently, the price of Agarwood is from 200 USD – 3,000 USD / kg, the price of Agarwood oil is from 4,000 USD – 20,000 USD / kg
- Agarwood made from Aquilaria Crassna trees depends very much on external factors as well as it takes a lot of time for the tree to grow and harvest
- Agarwood brings many high-value uses: used to produce frankincense essential oil, incense powder, incense incense, .. and can produce high-class perfumes and cosmetics, so the agarwood price is pushed up very high.
Why agarwood price is so expensive?
The beauty of agarwood is that when the oil is aged, it forms an intensely fragrant aroma, which is extremely complex and exceptionally beautiful in character. Every agarwood species yields a different kind of aroma. There are as many aromas as there are trees. Each bottle of oud oil will smell differently depending upon the age, distillation technique and the region from where it is obtained.
During distillation the artisan is typically able to obtain about 3~5% in weight of oil per kilo of agarwood being distilled. The code of agarwood may range anywhere from US$ 2,000 to high as US$ 25,000 a kilo. There are some rare varieties which can fetch even higher than this whereas there are some which are never distilled for oil; in fact those are burnt as incense.
Read more: Agarwood prices – possibly the most expensive non-timber wood on earth
Very interesting, thanks and more power