Premium Baotou Hainan Aloeswood Horseshoe Formation 21.3g

Hainan horseshoe formations or bao-tou is a form of agarwood formation by which the wound is closed by the tree’s resination process over a process of decades. Every batch of baotou with good resination takes the efforts of one and a half generation of agarwood guardians, by which the care takers of old agarwood trees would carefully create the wound on the tree in the right spot, for the tree to heal itself and the agarwood formed ready for harvest either by their children or grand children. As the wound closes, a thin shell of high quality agarwood resin seals the tree from the outside world, and when harvested, the tree will need another few decades again, provided if it remains alive and not uprooted by poachers. This high quality formation then undergoes extensive cleaning, where fibrous wood and unresinated parts are removed, leaving behind the fragrant parts, which many times is just a small fraction of the whole batch in weight. This baotou can be enjoyed in many ways, small fragments of resinated parts can be broken off and heated gently in kodo-style, or on subitism style heaters, or larger pieces to be directly grilled on hot charcoal, the experience is uplifting and impeccable. The material can also be milled into a premium fine powder for incense making, which is one of the most desirable incense making materials on earth. Our bao-tou comes from private groves that have century old trees, the large girth of the pieces is testament to this special collection. Sinensis is a very slow growing specie, as such this makes the bigger diameters extremely precious.

21.3 grams