Did you know that Assam is the world’s biggest supplier of oud?

There is an oft-ignored, deep-rooted correlation between oud and its origin in India 

What’s common between the best-selling perfumes from prestigious fragrance houses like Chopard, Dior, Tom Ford and Gucci? The answer is oud or oudh. The term ‘oud’ is derived from an Arabic word that literally translates to ‘wood’, and one can believe that the moniker was coined on the basis of its only source–the agarwood trees. Oud is recherché, to an extent that the precious substance is also called “liquid gold” as it can cost as much as or even more than gold. A Business Insiderarticle revealed that one kilogram of agarwood can cost as much as 1 lakh dollars or 73 lakh rupees. Additionally, only two per cent (or less) of the scarcely available agarwood trees are actually able to produce oud. Perhaps this is why Abdullah Ajmal, CEO of Ajmal Group, chronicles the business of oud as one that thrives on fortune and destiny, besides the incredible skill and expertise that it entails. The Established helps you piece together the many nitty-gritties of the ingredient.

How is oud made?

The way oud is fabricated is a fascinating tale. When you purchase an oud-infused perfume, you’re introduced to its bottled smoky, musky and intense aroma but what you don’t get is the opportunity to cotton on to the tedious process that goes behind the making of this elixir.

Oud oil is actually fabricated from the fungus of the agarwood trees.  It is fascinating to note that the precious oud oil can only be extracted from a putrefied segment of the agarwood tree’s bark. The start-to-end process of procuring oud spans across roughly ten steps, which remains unchanged for over a hundred years, mentions Ajmal. “It’s a completely artisanal business,” he says, since not a single step in the process can be mechanised—everything requires manual intervention of highly-skilled operatives.

A complex extraction process

Hojai in Assam is the largest homeland of oud today (and for ages) and also where Ajmal’s factory is located. To extract oud, the first step is to injure the barks of the agarwood trees for the fungus to occur. Until a few years ago, the fungus would occur naturally via the pecking of birds or other natural climatic factors; however, nowadays, the barks are mostly ‘injured’ synthetically to keep the process up and running. A couple of weeks after injuring the barks, experienced artisans venture into the plantations to identify the barks that actually contain a good amount of the oleoresin. One way of deciphering whether or not the bark has responded to the injury is by spotting a handful of fine white-coloured particles that accumulate at the bottom of the tree.

Once the barks are chopped, the artisans begin to hunt for sections that champion a decayed puncture (a black hole), or the indication of a fungus materialised right as the bark of the tree responds to the injury in the form of a resin's development to protect itself. Following the collection of such barks, they undergo four stages of cutting and chiselling—spanning  a month, with each stage taking a week—to get rid of the white wood and march closer to the resin, where all the oud is largely contained. The darker the wooden chips, the higher the price they command. The eventual wooden chips are put through distillations in traditional furnaces to create Dehn Al Oudh,or oil of oud. The final droplets are separated from water using the hands with a sweeping technique. An agarwood tree can take up to a decade to generate oud. “A 10-year-old tree can yield up to 10 kg of useful wood. About 70 kg of wood can produce 20 ml of oudh oil,” KP Shamsudheen, chairman and chief executive officer of AWK Research India Private Limited told The News Minute.

The Indian connection

“The oldest references to oud date back to about five thousand years ago, when royal women used it for various purposes, considering oud is both aromatic and therapeutic,” shares Ajmal, as he begins to explain the relationship between oud and India. Despite the Arab-ification of it, “oud is very much Indian,” he states. Assam is the world’s biggest oud supplier and has always been so, but its Middle-Eastern connection comes from the fact that Arabs acknowledged and appreciated the intense fragrance of oud hundreds of years ago, when they would visit India for trade purposes, and were willing to pay the price for it, at a time when Indians didn’t reciprocate similarly, he further states. Today, some regions of Malaysia, Indonesia and Cambodia also possess ownership of the agarwood trees, albeit India continues to prevail as the best quality purveyor.

The evolution of oud’s perception

In the past few years, oud has taken centre stage not only in India but across the globe. Yves Saint Laurent was the first international player to infuse oud in its perfume called M7 in 2002, which was discontinued later and an upgraded version launched in 2011. However, when Tom Ford launched ‘Oud Wood’ in 2007, a perfume embodying oud’s woody olfactory notes, the world took notice; celebrities from across the globe named it to be their most-loved fragrance and that’s how the culturally-rich oud made a contemporary comeback.

Today, the hashtag #oud boasts a whopping 522.8 million views on TikTok, while #oudperfume has bagged 8.9 million views. A Google trends report also reveals that the Indian consumer’s interest in oud has only increased in recent years. “On Tata CLiQ Luxury, ouds contribute around 4-5 per cent of our luxury and premium fragrance portfolio and roughly 12-14 per cent of niche fragrances,” says Gitanjali Saxena, chief business officer, Tata CLiQ Luxury. “This is growing year on year, averaging around 50 per cent just in the last two years,” she adds. “Around 10 per cent of our fragrance portfolios are oud-based scents from various brands, each very distinct from the other,” says Kimberly D'silva, assistant marketing manager, SCENTINDO.

Astha Suri, founder, NASO Profumi, says oud is the most important component of her perfumery for it’s one of the most sustainable compounds and bestows longevity and depth to a fragrance—two key focus areas at NASO. “Oud passes as the only compound that’s luxurious and sustainable. It comes from India, and is a very true, organic and rich wood,” says Suri, touting oud as a significant sillage booster.

“Eighty per cent of oud is used in the GCC across forms and textures, but I do see modern Europe being highly vested in and inquisitive about oud in the last 10-15 years. Talking about India, it has grown to become a huge market for oud,” shares Suri, enumerating the three top markets for oud. She believes that people can either love oud or hate it but the conversions to oud-admirers will invariably increase when they experience green oud, should it be presented through concoctions made for the Indian nose. 

In concurrence, D’Silva says, “Today’s fragrance buyers are more aware and well-travelled; they know about oud and most own at least a bottle.” Adding why oud is a hot-seller today, she says, “Firstly, the moment something becomes a trend everyone wants it; secondly, people are loving oud because it’s exquisite, has a warm smell, is of a high value and gives confidence to the one who is wearing it, just like a Rolex watch on your wrist would.”

Saxena throws light on some statistics pertaining to the Indian market and consumers. “In India, the top three regions, namely Maharashtra, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, contribute to 45 per cent of oud scent sales for Tata CLiQ Luxury. Currently, we have over 30 brands that have oud scents, out of which 25 are niche brands spanning over 150-plus SKUs of oud. The global market for oud runs into $6-8 billion annually, and the demand for such fragrances is only expected to grow.”

Also Read: Should you invest in artisanal perfumes?

Also Read: NASO Profumi is set to rewrite the rules of homegrown luxury perfumery

Also Read: How your favourite perfume brands use storytelling to sell scents online