Tigerwood Melayyu

This is an old-timer’s oud at a beginner’s price. A riptide of oud smoke crashes on a shorebreak decked out with hirta agar strips. A whirlwind of steaming malaccensis incense blazes through a noir petrichor-like Sumatran chord dipped in jackfruit. There’s a big discrepancy in the Indo-Malay oud scene. On one hand, it’s possible to distill fantastic oud from wild-harvested aquilarias (typically malaccensis, hirta, or microcarpa), but on the other hand it’s a mission to find more affordable quality alternatives.  They’ve started to plant and cultivate agarwood saplings in Indonesia and Malaysia, many of these being aquilaria crassna, imported from Thailand – i.e. not the local species that give ouds from this area their unique flavor. This alone just adds to the disappearance of an authentic Malaysian oud experience, archiving the profiles that make Indo-Malay oils so unique. The cultivation trend across the oud world is in many ways a move towards the crassnafication of the oud world so that not long from now ouds from different places will smell more and more alike. Quality West Malaysian oils are far and few between and you can expect to pay $790+ a bottle. Tigerwood Melayyu gives you a glimpse into this sweet-resinous world for a fraction of what it would otherwise cost you to enter this arena. I’m not talking Borneo here, but rather the scent profiles of West Malaysian agarwood… the “Land of Lightning” peninsula that includes the legendary jungles of Pehang, Kelantan, and Terengganu. Resin-heavy, smoke-incense ouds often start off with those defining chords, then typically descend into a brighter, fruitier, or woodier drydown. The rate of this transition depends on the percentage of agarwood that gives it that smokey boost – a small percentage of incense-grade agarwood may give it a noticeable but brief lift in the opening before the profile of the batch(es) that make up the bulk of the distillation starts to emerge and eventually dominate. No cultivated Malay with a smell this bang-on would cost so little. A whiff of Tigerwood Melayyu and a veteran oudhead’s nose would instantly jump to $790+ caliber wild ouds to compare this to. Anything less doesn’t match. That’s because this oud actually contains a good chunk of wild agarwood…   If you happen to have few Kelantan oud chips or any premium Malaysian oud chips, go on… light ’em up and then take a fat swipe of Tigerwood Melayyu and you’ll notice that it’s the opening that’s slightly on the sweeter side before the incense oud smoke takes over the reins… And that’s the lingering aroma you’d have wafting from your wrist, your forearm, your tie, your jacket or scarf, wherever you swipe TW Melayyu, for hours on end. This isn’t oud for a novice. These wild waves of incense, this dark resinous base admixed with that wacky jackfruit jam sweetness on top is an oud oozing spiral best left for experienced noses to get caught up in. That, or it’s the best way to get proper oud drilled into a newcomer’s head for life! *PS: If this is your first time buying oud, I recommend you add Oud Yusuf, which is what we’d normally suggest to newcomers. Tigerwood Melayyu is such a bargain and adds good contrast, between it and Oud Yusuf, you’ll have plenty to keep your nose busy!