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From one of the most surreal places on earth, we present to you one of the most unusual ouds in the world, Shwe Myitkyina.
Extracted from old trees in Myitkyina (pronounced Mee-chee-na) in northern Myanmar, the effect of geography on the aroma of oud has never been more obvious than it is in this oil.
Myitkyina is sandwiched between southern China and the eastern-most regions of India, and you will not only find burning agarwood from this region to have a fantastic orchestra of scent notes but when you juice the wood for its precious oil, the orchestra becomes all the more brilliant.
The distiller insisted the raw materials were of the standard Aquilaria Malaccensis species native to Myanmar, but my own conviction is that the trees were actually of the rare agarwood species Aquilaria Sinesis.
Shwe Myitkyina was distilled in early 2014 using the old-fashioned Indian method, and the result is an oil that possesses not only one of the richest aromas but also one of the most complex.
Bursting with opening notes of orange blossom, leather and honey, your first impression may be that this is a classic East Indian oud. But the leather note... its not the usual bovine or doeskin leather you find in traditional Indian ouds. Its an almost serpentine leather. Clean, supple, golden-brown. Primitive.
The more you sniff, the more you start to realise this is no Indian oud. The oil starts to develop an incredibly sweet aroma, intense in its sweetness. This is the hallmark feature of ouds from Myanmar and southern China.
And as the oil develops further on your skin, the classic Chinese Sinesis agarwood aroma shines through with brazen clarity. Bitter wood, grapefruit zest and oak-aged cognac. As removed from agarwood as they might sound, these are in fact the classic scent notes of prized Chinese agarwood from Zhanjiang and Hainan.
Although the scent progession is quite distinct in all its stages, the scent palette is surprisingly congruent.
Want an all-encompassing yet altogether unique oud? If so, this oud is for you.
Il
y a notamment l'odeur du miel que je perçois bien
aujourd'hui , puis
cette douceur de cuir qui dure sur la peau.... Juste la
note de fleur
d'oranger que je ne détecte pas vraiment...
Une autre très belle huile , donc , facile à porter ,
qui fond sur la
peau (la mienne en tout cas) et non agressive pour
l'entourage.
J.S. (France)
Shwe is ....something entirely unsuspected; and
extraordinary, too!
T.S. (Germany)
This
oud has the most piercing, mind-clearing, golden
metallic type scent to
me. Metallic may not be quite the right word, and
usually
describing a scent as metallic might not make it seem
appealing - but
this scent is so enjoyable and blissful.
Crystalline, metallic,
luminous, golden liquor is more like it.. There's
also a
wonderful but subdued barnyard note present that smell
especially early
on - just a hint of that earthy animalic funk..
J.M. (USA)
Shwe Myikyina is a
sniffer, I can hardly type with the scent of it in the
air because I
don't want to miss a note as it develops. A
beautiful title pool
with the sweeeeeeet hay leather I love. I thought of
Brut as soon as I
put this on but then sweet.
Please may I have some
more?
C.G. (USA)
I had totally forgotten
that the Shwe Myitkyina was a Burmese oil and hadn't had
time to look
it up today before putting it on. I actually thought it
must have been
a Hindi/ Indian oud! Slightly funky blue-cheese opening,
not too
pronounced, which settles pretty quickly into a sweet
honey hay note.
So far, it has been quite linear from that point (6
hours since putting
it on), but that's just fine as I love those notes.
Currently the honey
is starting to become more pronounced, with some soft
woods peeking
through. Overall gentler than a typical Indian Oud. I
couldn't say it
is a cross between an Indian and Cambodi (probably the
closest in terms
of sweet notes), it has something unique to itself.
R.D. (Australia)
Btw that Shre Myitkyina
oil is terrific! Very intoxicating, like a fine
liquor or some such thing..
J.M. (USA)
Oh I can see how much
Shwe had going on...but serpentine is the word in more
ways than
one...it is mysterious...very different...there is alot
of subtly (in a
profound way, I am using a more eastern defining
characteristic for
subtly here). I just do not quite have the
vocabulary for this
one yet, I will need to take a fee more cracks at
it...poor me. :)
J.P. (USA)
I like it a lot. It has
the best topnotes of any oud oil I have tried…
D.C. (USA)