The "Shen" of "Shen Tanlong Musk Deer" often said in ancient times refers to agarwood. Aquilaria fragrance is elegant and very rare, and it has been listed as the first fragrance since ancient times.
Different from sandalwood, agarwood is not a kind of wood, but a kind of special incense tree, which is a solid condensate of oil (resin) and wood components. However, the wood of this kind of fragrant tree itself has no special fragrance, and the wood is soft. According to the current research, several trees of Aquilaria of Daphne family, such as Aquilaria malayi, Aquilaria wanxiang and Aquilaria India, can form Aquilaria.
Generally speaking, the greater the density of agarwood, the more condensed resin, and the better its quality. Therefore, the ancients often divided agarwood into different grades according to whether it can sink in water: those who sink in water are called "submerged" incense; Secondly, those who are semi-floating and semi-sinking are called "stack incense" (stack, woven by bamboo and wood), also known as "note (sound" fried ") incense" and "water fragrance"; Once again, a little into the water and floating on the surface, called "yellow cooked incense."
Because agarwood is naturally condensed, its size and shape are very different, so the ancients took many interesting names for its characteristics, such as: tooth incense (small in size, like a horse's teeth), leaf incense (thin in shape), chicken bone incense (with a gap inside, like a chicken bone), light incense (the appearance is like a dried-up rock, which is mostly used for display), and water pan head (large in size and good in texture) Some exquisitely shaped agarwood can also be used as furnishings.
The water sink in agarwood is mostly less than ten centimeters in width and dozens of centimeters in length; Those with high quality are generally dense in texture and even as hard as rocks; The surface is very uneven; The color is mostly green, dark green, yellow, brown or black, the oil part is dark, and the xylem part is light yellow and white, which is mixed into various textures; Aquilaria sinensis with high oil content is often dark in color, moist in texture, easy to ignite, and even boiling oil can be seen when burning.
There are four kinds of reasons why water sinks to make fragrance:
First, "ripe knot": after the death of trees, the roots and trunks of trees fall to the ground or sink into the soil, and after years of wind, rain and rain, they slowly decompose and shrink, and finally leave the condensate mainly composed of oil. For example, "Compendium of Materia Medica" says: "It accumulates old wood, and its skin is rotten for many years, and the wood heart and branches are not bad. Those who are hard and dark are also agarwood."
Second, "knot": the fragrant knot formed by trees when they are alive. After deep wounds are caused by external forces such as knives and axes, snakes and insects, etc., the incense tree will ooze resin for self-protection, thus making incense near the wounds.
Third, "falling off", the fragrance produced after the branches rot;
Fourth, "insect leakage" is the fragrance formed by the decay of trees by insects and bacteria.
Due to the shortage of resin glands in short-lived fragrant trees, it is generally only possible for fragrant trees of more than several decades to form agarwood, and it takes many years from incense to maturity, so top-grade natural agarwood is priceless.
As far as most agarwood is concerned, the darker the color, the denser the texture and the better the quality. However, this is only a general standard. Because of the complex causes of agarwood, many factors directly affect the quality of incense, such as the length of years of fragrance, the amount of oil, living trees or dead trees, so it is not enough to identify it only by appearance and physical indicators. The best way is to judge it by nose and experience after smoking.
The output of natural agarwood is limited, and now it is mostly cultivated artificially. Often, some "wounds" are cut or drilled on the trunk of mature fragrant trees, or some fungi are laid. After one or several years, agarwood will grow near the wounds, and the longer the years, the better the quality of incense. However, even if it is cultivated artificially, it usually takes more than 10 years for the fragrant trees to bear fragrance.
At present, the main producing areas of agarwood are Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos and Hainan Island in China. Historically, India, Myanmar and other places have also produced a lot of agarwood, but due to a large number of logging, it is rarely produced now, just the processing center of agarwood.
Most thymelaeaceae almost can't smell the fragrance under normal conditions, but when smoked and burned, it is rich in fragrance, which can cover other smells and stay for a long time. It is a high-grade perfume for making essential oils and natural perfumes. In some Arab countries, agarwood is often smoked and burned directly at important ceremonies and parties.
Aquilaria sinensis not only has elegant aroma, but also has magical effects such as opening customs, unblocking qi pulse, preserving health and treating diseases. It has always been an important medicinal material, and there are many related descriptions in ancient Chinese medicine books. For example, in Materia Medica, it is said that "it can lower the qi and lower the sputum, and it can also rise, and the qi is fragrant into the spleen, so it can regulate the qi and adjust it, and its color is black. The body is yang, so it enters the life door of the right arm, warms the essence and helps the yang, and the qi is not harmful, and the warmth does not help the fire. " "Daming Materia Medica" refers to "regulating the internal organs, benefiting essence and strengthening yang, warming the waist and knees, and stopping the tendons from vomiting and diarrhea"; Compendium of Materia Medica says that it can "treat upper heat and lower cold, reverse qi and shortness of breath, deficiency of large intestine, stranguria in urine, and cold in men."
Aquilaria sinensis is not only suitable for smoking, but also can be ground into powder for oral administration (external use can also treat trauma and have analgesic effect), or brewed with Aquilaria sinensis tablets and Aquilaria sinensis powder for drinking, all of which are traditional health-preserving recipes.
The agarwood with hard texture and full oil is also an excellent carving material. The carved agarwood is simple and vigorous, deep and moist, and has a unique charm. Aquilaria wood requires a lot of skill from carvers, its hardness is much higher than that of wood, and it condenses both oily and wooden materials, and its texture is uneven, so it is difficult to carve, so good agarwood wood carving is extremely precious.
In Buddhism, agarwood also has a high status. Aquilaria Resinatum is one of the main spices for bathing Buddha. The rosary beads and Buddha statues carved by thymelaeaceae are precious Buddhist tools. The incense made by Aquilaria Resinatum is not only used for worshipping Buddha, but also the first-class incense for meditation.
There is also a special category in agarwood: Qinanxiang. Qinan is a word translated from Sanskrit. It is often written as Dogalo in Buddhist scriptures in the Tang Dynasty, and later it has names such as Galand, Ganan and Qinan. )
The origin of Qinnanxiang is basically the same as that of ordinary agarwood, but there are many differences between them, so it is customary to make it into a single category and list it as the top grade of agarwood.
Qi Nan Xiang is not as dense as agarwood, and the first-class agarwood sinks when it enters the water, while many first-class Qi Nan are semi-sinking and semi-floating; Most agarwood is hard in texture, while chess nan is soft and sticky, and the cut pieces can even form xiang zhu; Under the microscope, it can be found that the oil glands in Aquilaria sinensis gather together, while the oil glands in Qinan are vivid.
The oil content of Qinnanxiang is generally higher than that of Aquilaria sinensis, and its aroma is sweeter and richer.
Most agarwood has almost no fragrance when it is not lit, while Qinan is different, and it can also emit a cool and sweet smell when it is not lit; When smoked and burned, the fragrance of Aquilaria sinensis is very stable, while the head fragrance, the original fragrance and the tail fragrance of Qinan have obvious changes. Moreover, the yield of Qinnanxiang is less than that of Aquilaria sinensis. For all kinds of reasons, it is especially precious to make Qi Nan Xiang. In the Song Dynasty, Qinan in Zhancheng (now in Vietnam) was already "a piece of gold". Until now, most of the best Qinan are still produced in Vietnam.
The prices of raw materials in Vietnam market are listed below for reference only:
The first-class product of Qinan is 600,000-/kloc-0,000,000/kg (note that all Qinan refers to the first-class product, and there is no second-class product of Qinan).
200,000-250,000/kg of second-class goods in inverted racks
30,000-50,000/kg of secondary products with water sedimentation.
Secondary product of soil settlement1.5,000-40,000/kg
Water-settled Grade III product 1 10,000-20,000/kg
The third-grade soil settlement product is 0.6 million-1 10,000/kg.
Huochenxiang 300 yuan -800 yuan