agarwood/oud leaf

Tisanes prepared from plants not belonging to the Camellia genus
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Mon Mar 29, 2021 2:28 pm

I just stumbled across this recently. I had been kinda curious about tea in Indonesia, which seems like it is more of a coffee spot these days with most tea being probably lower grade jasmine teas - though a lot of them do still come in lovely old style printed paper packages. Anyway... I had noticed a few people selling agarwood tea from Indonesia. I'm always looking for nice new non-caffeinated and non-alcoholic options for the evening and it sounded intriguing. Anyone tried it before? Also kinda curious about potential side effects like with jiaogulan? Whenever I see anything listed as "boosting metabolism" I know what that potentially means.

Also curious about its sustainability - I imagine its a far quicker and less invasive process to pick leaves from the trees, but these things always depend on rate of harvest vs rate of growth, etc.
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bliss
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Mon Mar 29, 2021 5:05 pm

I was going to clamp in here and say that it was unlikely to be the leaf from Aquilaria, since Agarwood and Oud usually denotes the resinous wood formed from mold infection of the heartwood. Sometimes combined with puer (oolongs too?) by putting some high quality agarwood in the tea pot (IIRC kyarazen talks about this on TC) or like here. Luckily I did some searching first, and it turns out to be a thing. Very interesting, I'm keen to learn more!
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debunix
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Mon Mar 29, 2021 7:07 pm

Aquaria malaccensis
Conservation status

Critically Endangered (IUCN 3.1)[1]

Cite per Wikipedia entry:

[1] Harvey-Brown, Y. 2018. Aquilaria malaccensis. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2018: e.T32056A2810130. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2018 ... 2810130.en. Downloaded on 21 October 2018.


I am very uncomfortable with discussion of consuming a critically endangered species for incense or tea flavoring.
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Tue Mar 30, 2021 3:52 am

debunix wrote:
Mon Mar 29, 2021 7:07 pm
I am very uncomfortable with discussion of consuming a critically endangered species for incense or tea flavoring.
This is a very important point. Yes, I felt uneasy bringing it up, but curiosity got the better of me and perhaps it was best left alone. I'd actually be very happy to and maybe we could completely change this into a discussion/information thread around sustainable usage (and or lack of that possibility) of non C.S. plants/leaves such as also ginseng root, so on, that might be found in or used as other infusions? While responsibility falls to us as consumers there are many food/drink/plant products sold with little to no information about their sustainability or precariousness. It is a very important topic and I hope my bringing up this particular plant didn't come across as flippant to the impact and usage. There has also been some good discussions around sustainability and environmental impact of tea so expanding that could be a good thing - the more we know, particularly from local perspectives or specialist knowledge, the better decisions we can make. I don't know if people would consider that getting too into the political for the purview of this forum though.

Also part of the reason I ask is since we have people from all over the world here and I hope to get perspectives from people who might be more local to production/consumption of this or other plants. From what I understand plantation growth of Aquilaria has expanded and in many places also with a greater focus on sustainability of harvest - however that doesn't mean and we shouldn't assume it isn't still in a highly precarious situation, or that this won't present other issues such as what else might be cleared out for such plantations reducing other habitats, etc. I actually don't consume agarwood in any way so I don't have much experience or knowledge with this, and I'm also not interested in consuming anything that would cause extensive harm to or reduce the sustainability of a species/environment, however if there are also more sustainable ways of using a particular plant that is also an interesting option I think.

My partner recently was working a lot in the area of sustainable usage reports of natural resources and one thing we found really interesting was that aside from there being lots of grim news, there was also a large grey area in many spots, particularly related to many wild species and the knowledge of their use/harvest by local and indigenous communities vs who passes regulations on those species. Of course this isn't in all cases and we also have to look at who financially controls and benefits certain land/resources and ensure it is actually the locals. However there were numerous instances where the harvest of a particular organism would be banned by law due to 'over-harvesting' having been determined, sometimes by a single study or determination made in short-term by one assessor who frankly didn't seem to have solid understanding of said organism's ecology, and operated completely outside of and did not consult with local/indigenous people who rely on and are deeply connected to that organism and have been tracking its growth or decline in various conditions for lifetimes, and then in hindsights there was actually zero evidence to suggest that the organism was in any sort of risk or danger. Instead this only resulted in locals who had been consumers or and therefore the actual stewards of the species being labeled as poachers, and/or the possible expansion of grey/black market sales as opposed to transparent and sustainable use. To me this can be equally as colonialist as our use of a particular food/plant/resource through its control for profit or overconsumption. Of course this isn't always the case either and there are plenty of wild or semi-cultivated species that due largely to western appetite for so called superfoods or commodification of folk/traditional medicine practices or even recreational drugs pose very high environmental risk and species endangerment in addition to possibly squeezing locals out of their own access and as a process denying them both potential food/medicine as well as cultural/spiritual resources- cordyceps being the first example that jumps to my mind.
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