Identification and selection of gaharu

There is a China gaharu authority website that teaches us how to identify and select gaharu products. The following article is taken and translated from this gaharu authority website.

Identification and selection of gaharu

The aroma will enter into the heart through nose and mouth. Thus, it has a very direct impact on the physical and mental aspects. Therefore, good quality aromas need to have pleasant smell, without bringing risk to the health and can recuperate our physical and mental. These are the basic principles in identification of gaharu products. Its aroma has various forms. In terms of cultures (Wén), its about living a healthy lifestyle; in terms of quality (zhì), its about enhancing one's health. With the healthy lifestyle and enhanced health, it’s the essence and real beauty for gaharu.

            However, there are wide ranges of gaharu. Thus, it is unsuitable to generalise the identification of gaharu. So, the following aspects listed should be paid attention during the identification.

Raw materials, formulation and processing

Natural flavours (including natural spices extracts) have higher health value as compared to synthetic fragrances. Synthetic fragrances are mostly made from coals chemicals, petrochemicals and other chemical raw materials that contain carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and other elements. It smells good, however, the chemical substances do bring a different levels of health hazards especially for smouldering incense products.

            Natural spices, as a contrast, it has high health values, nice aroma and rich in nutrient. Precious spice incense products are generally categorized as “chén tán lóng shè” which refers to gaharu, sandalwood, ambergris and musk. Gaharu is the essence in these four types of high quality spices. There are also other good quality spices that are widely used which are turmeric, roses and more.

            A good quality spices just like medicine. Both of them need to have good materials and good recipe. Single spice’s potency is usually biased. Thus, when we have two same quality spices (pure and mixture of spices), often, mixture of spices is more effective as compared to the pure spice.

Aroma characteristics

For people with general usage of incense, it is difficult for them to determine the incense quality from its appearance. So, smelling is the most direct and reliable determination method. However, there is a higher requirement on the person. There are some people that unawarely using poor quality incense. Unconsciously they formed habits of using low quality incense which can lead to low evaluation criteria. For new incense products, even experienced incense connoisseur might not able to have the right judgement. But, everything has a learning process. With more attention and careful during identification of gaharu quality, you will be more experienced. Thus, being able to determine a good quality gaharu will not be a problem. 

Due to different types of gaharu, there is no standard method in the identification. However, good quality of gaharu generally has the following characteristics:

• Fresh aroma and would not feel dizziness even smell it for a long time.
• Feeling refresh and sense of pleasure that would not cause impatient.
• Mellow smell, would not feel irritate even take a deep breath.
• Even it smell rich, you will not feel greasy. Or if the smell indifferent, its aroma also clearly discernible.
• Cannot trace any artificial flavour in the aroma even when the smell is obvious. You still can experience the natural smell.
• Its smell can make people relax and be in quiet and beautiful mood.
• It could produce a sense of physical and mental nourishment which make people willing to be in it.
• Mellow smell and you would not feel tired or bored with the smell.
• Long lasting.
• Natural gaharu can often reveal bitter and herbs smell from the aroma.
• Higher quality smouldering incense often have pale green whitish smoke, slightly smoke or smoke free.

            Abovementioned is just the general quality characteristics of gaharu. For the highest quality of gaharu, without personal experience, its smell is far beyond your imagination. Ancients describe high quality incense is panacea. It can help people with diseases. To have this high quality incense, your need to have superior quality gaharu, extraordinary recipe and professional incense maker. However, these are very hard to find in nowadays market.

Appearance

Basically, ordinary people are unable to determine gaharu quality just from its appearance. To make incense, all the materials need to go through a meticulous grinding and mixing processes. So, you can hardly see even one spice extract characteristic from its appearance. Low quality chemical additives can be used in making the incense surface look more attractive, smooth and clean while for most natural spices, its is in grey colour. Other than that, low quality chemical fragrance also can be used in producing pleasant aroma. Packaging also can be used in feigning a high quality and high grade incense. For a medium or low quality gaharu raw materials, it is unlikely that you cannot differentiate it. However, there are many ways could be applied to cover up and modify its quality.

            Hence, appearance could only provide limited information. High quality gaharu may look indifferent while low quality gaharu may look gorgeous. Therefore, we should be careful while determine the quality so that we would not mislead by its appearance. Basically, the most reliable identification method is through its aroma. For incense and incense coil, it could be determined with its weight. Although it’s not saying that heavier incense is better quality, but generally, lighter incense are mostly made from low quality raw materials such as plant ashes. Nevertheless, you cannot determine its quality by looking at their “volume”. There are many thick and long incense is made without proper compression which also means its materials bind very loose. 

For more information, please feel free to contact me with following contact details:

Office: +60 82 456095 (Ms. Jong)

Email: +60 14 6995976