RIP Vietnam Agarwood

Ensar takes a look at the emerging 'oud' industry that will cause, is causing, a lot of confusion among oud lovers.

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Transcript
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Ensar: We're at the airport duty free and right next to the wallets and the Advil you have agarwood bracelets and buddhas carved. Unbelievable!

Here we are at Ho Chi Minh international airport and you've got agarwood and agarwood chips and agarwood powder and agarwood bracelets and every single trinket shop that you find right next to the fake alligator skin wallets and advil and all these things. It's unbelievable. Let's take a look at this other shop. Can we just check out this shop now? There's another shop right next to it.
And here we go. You got incense. You got more incense, agarwood skins and agarwood beads, fake agarwood statues, agarwood coils, fancier agarwood coils. You can understand the extent of the industry of agarwood in Vietnam. I mean it's huge. It's huge. Incredible. Look at this statue[of agarwood]. So you can see why it wouldn't be difficult for someone to come to Vietnam and fly off with a whole bunch of agarwood. It's everywhere. It's an industry. It's not what agarwood used to be. It's a whole other thing. It's a whole other thing.

[At the agarwood dealer's shop]

Ensar: [holding a small piece of agarwood] This is a remarkable piece. Anybody you give this to will be happy burning it. However, if I gave you a piece that looks like this that was harvested thirty years ago, the smell will be, not only notches and notches, it would be stratospherically superior to this smell even though this is already a good smell. Now if I take this and I chop it off and I dust it up and I grind it up, I can make oil that smells fantastic. You all know that. I've done that already with cultivated wood from Thailand. I can cook this artisanally. I can use the very best methods for cooking the most elegant oils and give you something stupendous. I'm never going to tell you that I made this and just because they told me it's wild I'm telling you the same thing. My conscience is clear. This is somebody's produce. This is something he planted with an intention of harvesting at a given date and that's what he got. Okay.

Otherwise, if we had all these wild trees that are producing tons and tons of agarwood coming out of Vietnam, where are all the super pieces? How come there's no black sinking stock that we can buy for love or money? Where is the carving bead quality agarwood? How come nobody can find it? How come it's all coming from Sri Lanka and Kalimantan still? But even there it's diminishing rapidly. This is the status, folks. This is the reality on the ground. I'm not here to kid you. I'm not here to fool you. I've got nothing to sell. It's a product.

Nature does not produce products. Something natural is not a product. It's a phenomenon, something that you harvest and it's like something wonderful because it's not something you can slap a price tag on because it's a wonder of nature. Plantations and farmers, they make products. That's what they do. And this has a by-product, this has a by-product. Which is what? The shavings. The carving dust. And that can be used to make what….oil, incense and many other things. People use it as medicine. People use it as tea. They use it for many, many purposes. There's agarwood soap which is a whole other sector. There are agarwood lotions they're making today. Facial creams and everything. Where do you think it comes from? Do you think it comes from wild centennial trees like they had in 1965? This is not a marketing campaign. Whoever thinks this is a marketing campaign is deluding himself. This is an educational series. This is a documentary. I am documenting the reality on the ground. You can take it or leave it. This is the truth. Thank you very much.

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