The craft of making agarwood by using microbial products

Tan Phu is a highland district of Dong Nai, home to Cat Tien National Park, famous throughout the country. This place is also known by many as the cradle of Dong Nai agarwood craft with the most famous being the agarwood village in Phu Trung commune.

For many years, Truong Thanh Khoan's agarwood production facility has been well known for his exclusive method of creating agarwood on Aquilaria trees. “I used to wade through the forest in search of agarwood. As forest agarwood source gradually depleted, in 2000 I started growing Aquilaria trees to produce artificial agarwood,” he said.

Agarwood is formed when the Aquilaria tree is wounded. The tree trunk secretes resin to protect and recover the damaged part. Over a long period of time, resin accumulates and turns into agarwood. Many places are currently cultivating agarwood using the chemical method, which not only affects the environment but also carries many risks of causing the tree to die. The created agarwood has a strong aroma different from natural agarwood. As for Khoan, right at the time he started planting Aquilaria trees, he experimented with both the biological and chemical factors.

Seeing some initial success from the first batch, Khoan conducted more research and gradually eliminated chemicals. The agarwood inoculation medicine is now made entirely of probiotics with natural, organic ingredients such as honey, corn bran, molasses, and coconut oil. Khoan’s method of creating microbial products to stimulate Aquilaria trees was granted a patent by the Department of Intellectual Property (Ministry of Science and Technology) in 2016.

Having mastered the secret to creating agarwood, Khoan now continues his research to make agarwood essential oil and works of art related to agarwood, aiming to increase the overall value of the products he made with his own hands.

In order to have equipment to produce essential oils and water distilled from agarwood, Khoan and the workers have to research the agarwood boiler system very carefully because there are no mechanical products on the market specifically for extracting agarwood essential oil at the time.

Regarding the agarwood essential oil boiler system, factories mainly use stainless steel welded pots and wood for heating. The finished products are often unclean, less fragrant, and less effective. Khoan's self-created pot runs on electricity and has an insulating layer, so even though each pot of agarwood must cook continuously for 24 hours, the surrounding temperature remains unchanged, the product is guaranteed to be clean and retain the characteristic fragrance of agarwood oil.

“With the three existing essential oil cooking pots, we ground 30 kg of fresh agarwood and then put them into the pot to cook for 24 hours. From each pot of agarwood, we collect 4.8 ml of agarwood essential oil (1 ml of agarwood essential oil sells for VND 700,000 - 1,000,000) and 120 l of distilled agarwood water (the current price is VND 50,000 per 1 l)," said Khoan.

Apart from making essential oils and distilled water from agarwood, Khoan also chooses beautifully shaped trees to create ornamental agarwood products. With the selected trees, after the agarwood layer on the tree is extracted, skilled workers begin to shape the remaining tree trunk. Khoan currently has two agarwood gatherers and wood shapers who were awarded certificates of merit for skilled workers by Dong Nai People's Committee. These are workers trained by Khoan himself.

With his creations, Khoan's agarwood products are currently popular among international customers. He provides agarwood essential oil and agarwood distilled water to partners worldwide. In particular, Khoan's agarwood essential oil product has achieved 4-star OCOP, qualified for export to Korea and Canada.

“Agarwood products have high economic value, so many people use chemicals to stimulate agarwood, establishments produce essential oils and agarwood-related products of poor quality, affecting the reputation of the entire industry. The issue of creating a brand for clean agarwood products requires the collective efforts of the entire community of agarwood growers inside and outside the province, not just me," Khoan said.