Sustainable Agarwood Oil from Thailand
Our Thai agarwood oil is sourced from a cultivated agarwood forest in the tropical Trat province in eastern Thailand, near the Cambodian border. This project helps reduce the illegal harvesting of wild agarwood trees by replacing them with trees grown in a sustainable agroforestry system.
The growers plant new trees every year to ensure future harvests, and also purchase mature trees from local people who are growing them on their property. The project provides livelihoods to local villagers, and helps preserve the old growth forest.
Agarwood oil is not an easy oil to source — wild agarwood trees only produce the precious substance as an immune response to a fungal infection, and is therefore one of the rarest, most endangered, most expensive and most adulterated essential oils in the world.
In this sustainable plantation, young trees are drilled to mimic the process of insects boring into the bark, thereby eliminating the need to destroy the old trees.
Because agarwood trees grow best in a natural forest-like environment, the distillers have worked for many years with the local indigenous people to create a diverse ecosystem where many species of plants are growing together. Fruit trees such as mangosteen, cashew nut, durian, jackfruit, mango and lemon trees grow side by side with agarwood trees as well as tropical flowers and numerous wild plant species.
The agarwood oil from this project is unique for several reasons. The oil is distilled in copper stills, rather than the more common stainless steel. Copper makes the oils sweeter and brings out more of the floral tones of the wood; the oil is also filtered more carefully than most on the market. Most importantly, this oil is free of all synthetic contaminants, which is extremely rare in the world of agarwood products — Floracopeia has confirmed this through our own independent testing.
Agarwood oil and powder have a multitude of therapeutic effects, and are used in traditional herbal medicine across Asia. The most renowned and important benefits are those on the mind and spirit, which Chinese medicine describes as “calming to the shen”, and Ayurveda describes as “pacifying vata.” The fragrance simultaneously promotes a relaxing, meditative state and an uplifting, positive mood.
