How Agarwood Raw Material Is Graded and Why the Same Material Commands Different Prices

The grading of agarwood raw material has a documented basis in the industry—it is not a matter of each person's own say-so.

The forestry industry standard Agarwood Quality Grading, LY/T 3223—2020, is the current one. It was issued on December 29, 2020, implemented on June 1, 2021, with filing number 80021-2021. Its competent authority is the National Forestry and Grassland Administration, and it is administered by the National Technical Committee for Wood Standardization. Its scope is stated clearly: the quality grading of agarwood raw material and its products.

Bead strings have a separate group standard, T/HAIUA 002—2024 Agarwood Bead Strings, issued by the Hainan Agarwood Industry Federation and implemented on the day of issue, March 26, 2024. Several other items were released in the same batch, including agarwood incense products and agarwood essential oil, giving the incense, bead-string and essential-oil lines their own technical requirements.

The nature of these two documents must also be distinguished. One is a forestry industry standard, recommendatory, under the National Forestry and Grassland Administration; the other is a group standard, administered by the Hainan Agarwood Industry Federation. Neither industry standards nor group standards are mandatory national standards, but both are formal documents with numbers, filings and full texts that can be looked up—not the same thing as the "old master's formulas" circulating online.

Looking more closely at what each document governs: Agarwood Quality Grading specifies the terms and definitions, requirements, test methods, sampling and sample collection, determination and marking, and transport and storage of agarwood; it governs how raw material and its products are graded. The bead-string document governs product classification, technical requirements, inspection methods, inspection rules, marking, packaging, and transport and storage conditions; it governs the specifications against which finished strings are accepted.

One governs how material is graded; the other governs how finished products are inspected.

When the standards come down to grading, they look at three things.

Composition is one. Within the same type of incense, different proportions of components mean different grades.

Physical indicators are another. Measurable figures such as density are one basis for tiering.

Form is the third. Whole pieces, fragments, hooked threads and finished products each have different requirements.

Color depth is not among these three. Dark color does not equal a high grade; material cannot be judged by looking.

Blending is an unavoidable matter in the industry. The resin formed on the sun-facing and shade-facing sides of a single tree already differs; within the same patch of forest, tree age, species and soil all vary, so material in a single batch cannot be uniform piece by piece. Blending material of not entirely identical grades from the same batch in proportion to keep finished-product performance stable is standard practice.

What must be distinguished is another matter: selling low-grade material as high grade. Blending itself is not the same as passing off inferior goods as superior; the standards govern the former, and what remains is a question of business ethics.

Different prices for the same material usually come down to three layers. The raw-material layer comes first: whichever of composition, physical indicators or form drops a tier, the price drops to another tier. The form layer comes second: the same raw material made into raw stock versus a finished product has a different cost structure. The process layer comes third: trimming, shade-drying and storage all change weight and condition.

More concretely, why do the box-sold bead strings and stick-sold incense online cost thousands of yuan in one case and tens of yuan in the other? The difference often lies precisely at the raw-material versus finished-product layer.

For consumers, the practical point is simple: when the goods arrive, first look at the line of execution-standard number on the back of the packaging. If there is a number, the string was made according to some standard; whichever type of standard is written can be looked up. As for exactly which grade it belongs to, without a third-party test report the seller cannot say clearly, and the buyer should not fill that in for them.

So when asking for the execution-standard number, also ask clearly which document and which part it is: the raw-material standard, the bead-string standard, or another classification standard. Giving the number is the first step; stating which document governs it is the second.

Ask the seller which standard number this batch of material executes under, and only after they can answer should anything else be discussed. This step is more useful than repeatedly comparing prices.

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