I will start Chapter 2 with another confession: I’m too much of a perfectionist for my own good. My mother often laughingly remarks to others that when I was a kid I obsessed about every little thing being just right, and she loves giving a particular example: the tissue peaking out of the tissue box on the living room side table had to be sticking out just the right amount, at the right angle, and with weighted aesthetic symmetry.
Why this is relevant will be touched upon further below. Continue reading →

Confession of a flyaholic: I hate flying; the slightest turbulence makes me think a chunk from the wing just flew off. But when your job is tracking down the finest raw materials for making breath-taking oud oils, you gotta put up with it.

Continue reading →

Please see the photos below to live the moments of a gaharu hunter’s life at work. No, scratch that — not any hunter, but rather our 2 best Khmer hunters. It really is amazing how fast these guys work. Good job you two!

Continue reading →

(continued from “Two Khmer Villagers’ Dream – Part 1“)

In an earlier blog post (here), I had mentioned we have our own dedicated team of gaharu hunters in Borneo now. Using a strategic joint-venture partnership arrangement, I was able to gain 100% legal, full access to over 500 acres of Borneo jungle land. We even got the local Dato’s blessing.

So what does this translate to? It means I can have as many agarwood trees as I want from this area, and its fully sanctioned. No illegal felling, no smuggling, etc, which is standard practice in Borneo and elsewhere. Contrary to how things are typically done, I prefer to forge strategic partnerships which allow me to get old wild agarwood trees without breaking any laws.

Continue reading →

As most of you may know already, despite Agar Aura being located in Malaysia, most of our staff consists of Khmers (Cambodians), either themselves refugees who fled Pol Pot’s infamous “Reign of Terror”, or their children.

Whenever Ahmad and Yusof’s mother is asked to share some stories from Cambodia, you can see the sadness in her eyes. She went through a lot when she fled, on foot, from Cambodia to Malaysia. For a whole month, ‘home’ to her had been a grimy tunnel, where she had to hide to make sure she wasn’t being followed.

Earlier this month, when I was there, I met one of the uncles. I noticed that everyone seemed to be yelling at him, even the kids. I’ve never found these folks to be rude, I thought to myself, I wonder why everyone’s yelling at the poor old chap..?

Continue reading →

If you’ve been following my recent blog posts from the past several months, you probably expected a whole lot of new products to be released by now. Each country that I visit seems to be melding into the other, in my mind. There are so many distillation projects running at the moment, its even hard for me to keep track (over a dozen projects, in over half a dozen countries).

And like many folks who have been asking me, you may also be wondering where these new oils are. Continue reading →

Borneo, November 2014. Less than a month after my previous trip to Borneo. Why return so soon? For a couple reasons.
Firstly, I received the oil from the Borneo trial distillation using Agar Aura’s all-new techniques, and I was SO impressed that I realized I simply cannot afford to waste any time. I’ve got to start working on the first full batch without any delay.  Continue reading →

Continue reading →

There is probably no place in the world right now that is more populated per square mile with ancient and incredibly resinated agarwood trees than Sri Lanka. And yet, despite this overabundance, this is where the locals know the least about agarwood.

Continue reading →

I’m finally back in Kuching (Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo), and boy is it good to be back! Kalbar, the Sanggau Regency to be exact, was a back breaker. And although this particular trip was very successful, I won’t deny I am totally enjoying the comforts of Kuching. One of the many little things I made sure to enjoy was real, brewed, coffee. A rare commodity in my travels.

But this post is not about Kuching; I wanted to share with you one of the most bizarre experiences I’ve ever had in my travels…

Continue reading →