Deep, dark oud character — smoky and resinous with a leathery, animalic undertone and a warm balsamic sweetness. Develops earthy, almost fermented facets with hints of dried wood and a persistent honeyed-tobacco resonance.AI · claude-opus-4-7
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Perfume and Flavor Materials of Natural Origin, page 51.
Agar Oil is pale yellow to brownish yellow or dark amber in color; it is a very viscous liquid.
Agar Oil has a rich and sweet-woody, almost balsamic odor not unlike that of vetiverol or purified styrene-free styrax, and with a sweetness similar to that of sandalwood oil.
The taste of Agar Oil is extremely bitter, and it is not likely that the oil can find use in flavors beyond the local use for betel, tobacco, etc.
Agar Oil could find use in perfumery for oriental bases, woody-aldehydic bases, chypres, fougères, etc. when blended with vetiver oil, sandalwood, geranium, methylionones, linalool, etc. The oil produces interesting notes with isoeugenol in carnation bases.
This oil is water-distilled from fungus-infected wood of the tree Aquilaria Agallocha, growing in northeastern India. Healthy trees have an odorless wood which produces no essential oil. Only older trees are attacked by the fungi; thereafter an oleoresin is produced inside the wood. After proper maceration of the wood, this oleoresin will yield an essential oil upon distillation. Wood from infected trees is cut and coarsely chopped, then soaked in water prior to distillation. It is common practice to add salt (sodium chloride) to the water.