Technology
Four extraction routes, one grading floor and one laboratory. Nothing here is unusual in the industry — what is unusual is that we own all of it.
- Steam distillationLeaf oils, roots, spices, woods
- Two halls, direct and indirect steam. Cut-to-still time is the number that matters here, and having the stations close to the gardens is what keeps it short enough to hold the top notes.
- ResinoidBenzoin, other resins
- Solvent extraction of graded resin into a pourable resinoid. Grading before extraction rather than after is the reason our resinoid is consistent; sorting a finished batch cannot undo a mixed input.
- AbsoluteBenzoin, tuberose, cananga
- A second stage on selected materials, for perfumers who need the alcohol-soluble fraction and a cleaner colour. Yields are low and we do not run it speculatively.
- FractionationResins, patchouli, nutmeg, citrus
- Vacuum fractionation, in since 2019. Separates one material into several usable characters — a vanillic benzoin top and a balsamic body, for instance — without asking more of the forest.
The step that decides everything after it
Resin arrives mixed: tears, siftings, bark, the occasional stone. It is sorted by hand into three qualities by people who have done it for years, and no lot enters a still until it has been through that floor. Machines are faster and cannot tell a first-grade tear from a well-shaped second, which is exactly the distinction the price rests on.
- Three benzoin qualities, sorted by hand
- Household and collection point recorded at grading
- No blending across grades after the fact
GC-MS on every released lot
A specification is a promise, and a promise needs an instrument behind it. Every lot is run before release and the trace travels with the sample. When a season pushes a material outside its normal range we publish the range it actually reached, because a buyer who plans around the truth has a better year than one who plans around an average.
- Trace and batch certificate with every dispatch
- Specification held across seasons, not per lot
- Difficult years published as they happened
Every route above, applied to eighteen materials.
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