Heating Agarwood chip with or without a mica plate

I was told by one of our clients that there was little difference among different type of Oud chips. Before arguing or starting a heat discussion, I found out he put his agarwood chip directly on burning charcoal. Here are the factors that adversely affect the scent profile:

1. The key is to "heat" not "burn"; the combustion of woodchip would ruin the smell. Once you see the bubble from the resin ferociously vaporising and the smoke was so intensive, you know the temperature was too high. You could only enjoy the intensity of Oud smell in less than 10 seconds and will be flooding with smoke, smoke and smoke blending with Oud. To others, it might be right, do not get me wrong, but I found that was unpleasant.

In case you are unable to see the video, below is the picture.

2. Again, it is all about the right temperature. I understand that it is very tempting to put an insulator or a mica plate on top the charcoal straight immediately as we do not want to waste the heat. However, it is best to wait for 30 seconds or more until a small layer of ash was form on the top of the charcoal (or you could manually spatter the ash on top of the charcoal) before placing a mica plate on top. If you set it right, the fragrance from the agarwood chip will slowly emit its scent to the fullest.

Here is the Shoyeido Mica Plate

With this method, you could try several woodchips and be able to distinguish the differences from them (from the first 10 seconds ). The fragrance will last much longer and linger around your room.

If you found it hard to use charcoal, please use the electric burner for your convenience which has a disadvantage: not hot enough to burn out the last resin out of wood.

The invention of Subtism of Kyarazen will solve these problems as it offers from low to high heat precisely.

**Update: Our mica plate is another alternative compared to Shoyeido one**