Why There Is No Universal Loss Rate for Agarwood Incense Making

When discussing agarwood costs, the term "loss rate" comes up frequently. For a batch of incense, the percentage calculated from how much raw material goes in, how much finished product comes out, and how much is removed in between is the loss rate.

The problem is that there is no universal answer to this number.

I have reviewed a batch of content on loss within the site. Many people ask this question, but very few answer it accurately. Most people take a percentage and apply it directly to the material they have on hand. Two things are skipped in between: one is the condition of the material itself, and the other is how this particular batch is actually made.

To be specific: a note on the site asking "Is a 50% loss rate normal for making incense sticks?" has only eleven likes; one asking "The loss in trimming agarwood is painfully high" has twenty-three likes; one asking "How to reduce loss when machine-grinding powder" has thirty-three likes. In contrast, the two articles on how to choose natural binder powder have over four hundred and over two hundred likes.

On one side are three-digit likes; on the other, ten-digit likes—a difference of dozens of times. The production-method side is explained thoroughly, while the loss side is almost never answered. This is not necessarily because the askers are unprofessional, but more likely because few people answer, and answering wrongly carries responsibility—giving a wrong ratio and having it applied to someone else's material makes it wrong.

From the perspective of the process, weight is lost little by little across four stages.

The powder-making stage involves screening. After the powder is screened, the portion with non-conforming particle size is separated out; the finer the screening, the more is removed at this stage.

The trimming stage requires cutting away impurities. Not every part of the raw material can go into incense sticks; pieces with the wrong shape or unsuitable density must be picked out. This is the most labor-intensive of the four stages, and the hardest to apply a fixed ratio to.

The extrusion step determines thickness. For the same amount of powder, extruding into thick sticks versus thin sticks already involves different usage amounts.

The shade-drying stage causes weight loss. Some moisture leaves, and weight drops accordingly; the amount depends on the drying conditions of the day and is not entirely controllable by people. For the same batch of material, drying for three days and drying for seven days produce different results.

Adding up the four stages, how much is removed depends on the condition of the material and how fine the product is to be made, not simply on whether the material is expensive. Among agarwood of the same kind, those with more wood content and those with more resin content behave differently in the trimming stage; for the same batch of material, making thick sticks versus thin sticks yields different values in the screening stage.

Therefore, in the industry, when asked "What is the loss rate?", the more reliable answer is not to give a number but to clarify two things: what condition this batch of material is in, and how fine this batch of incense is to be made. Once clarified, how much each of the four stages removes can be calculated separately.

It should be noted that the above is a breakdown of the common workflow in incense making, belonging to common industry practice, not a national standard or industry standard. The actual values for a specific batch need to be measured in production and cannot be replaced by generic numbers. If anyone sees a statement in an article like "the loss rate for agarwood incense making is generally X percent," they should always ask: which batch was this number measured from?

One more practical point. If you have incense powder or raw material on hand, you can weigh it yourself once. Find a clean bowl, pour in a little, weigh it, and weigh it again after finishing. The difference between the two is the loss for this batch of material. This number is not professional, but it is the real situation of your own batch, and it matches better than any percentage online.

Two details when weighing: first, the bowl must be clean, as residue and water will skew the number; second, when weighing after finishing, wait until it is completely shade-dried—weighing in a hurry gives a heavier number that looks like "no loss," but actually the water is still inside.

Our shop handles the incense-making stage ourselves, with sixteen years of experience, producing and selling our own products. What we can calculate clearly is how much each of our own process stages removes; we are unwilling to give an industry-wide generic percentage—different process routes make a single number incomparable.

If you have a specific batch you want to calculate, write down the weight before making and the weight after finishing, and we will explain based on your set of data: what is removed by screening and what is cut off in trimming are not the same thing, and weight loss from shade drying is yet another matter.

One final boundary: we do not write about scent longevity, nor about gram weight and density; numbers without third-party measurement do not enter our articles. If anyone sees elsewhere "how many hours agarwood can retain its scent," they should likewise ask where the source is.

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