Oud

Oud is the scent of a tree healing itself. When the agarwood tree is wounded, by insects, by weather or by the hand of a farmer, it floods the wound with a dark resin, and over years that resin turns the pale wood into something black, dense and fragrant. There is no material on earth like it, and it gives its name to half my chapters.

What oud is

Oud, or agarwood, is the resinous heartwood of Aquilaria malaccensis, an evergreen of the forests of South and Southeast Asia. A healthy tree has no scent. Only when it is injured and infected does it produce the resin, and only the resin saturated wood is worth distilling. The wood is chipped, soaked and distilled by steam and water in a slow process that can take days, and the yield is tiny. The oil is one of the most complex natural materials known, with hundreds of molecules giving it leather, smoke, honey, wood and amber all at once.

Where our oud comes from

Ours is Assafi oud from Sylhet, in the northeast of Bangladesh, one of the oldest oud regions in the world. The hills of Sylhet, on the border of Assam, have grown and distilled agarwood for centuries, and the trade there has moved from wild trees to cultivated groves where the trees are grown and inoculated by hand. Sylhet oud is known for a leathery, animalic character with a remarkable amber sweetness, less barnyard than some Indian ouds and less medicinal than some Cambodian ones. It is oud with elegance, and that elegance is the character of the place.

How oud smells

Leathery, animalic, elegantly woody and extremely ambery. It opens dark and slightly wild, with a leather and smoke that can startle, then softens over an hour into a deep, sweet, ambery wood that lasts on skin until the next day.

Oud in our chapters

• VIImpériale OudThe First Root · in the base

  In Impériale Oud it is the first root, the leathery oud beneath a crimson rose, sharpened by cinnamon and softened by atlas cedar.

• VIISultanat OudThe Deep Roots · in the base

  In Sultanat Oud it is the deep root itself, laid beside sandalwood and cypriol beneath lavender and cardamom.

A note from the atelier

I use real oud where the chapter demands it and cypriol beside it to let it breathe. The Sylhet oil is the darkest material in my palette and the one I treat with the most respect.

Questions about oud