Chapter 70 What Is Agarwood

The man walked behind the counter, took out a bracelet from inside, and gently placed it in front of Shi Lei.

"This is one of the cheapest items I have here, pick it up and have a look."

According to Shi Lei's words, after picking it up, he only felt a burst of fragrance in his hand, which was slightly different from the fragrance in the store itself, but it seemed to come from the same source.

Seeing Shi Lei's nose twitch, the man said, "Did you smell it?"

Shi Lei nodded, and said: "What kind of wood is this, it smells so fragrant, it's somewhat similar to the one in your store, but not exactly the same."

The man was a little surprised, and said with great interest: "Oh? Then tell me what is the difference?"

Shi Lei put his hands up to his nose and smelled it, he found that the closer he was, the smell was much weaker, and it was not as refreshing as it was from a distance away.

"It's hard to say, I don't seem to have smelled a similar fragrance before. It's just that the fragrance of this bracelet seems to be a little more subtle, relatively low, vague, and has a little bit of milk fragrance. The fragrance in your store is bold and unrestrained. Yes, there is a little bit of spicy feeling mixed in it. But after getting used to it, the spicy feeling turned into a sweet taste, even the saliva in my mouth seems a little sweet now."

The man looked Shi Lei up and down, and laughed: "Little brother is interesting, it's not easy to be able to say so many things when you meet Chen Xiang for the first time. The door is closed, if you are interested, sit down and have a cup of tea, let me tell you about this agarwood?"

Shi Lei smiled, and hurriedly said: "That's kind, but the price of your things here is relatively high, I may not be able to afford it."

"I'm not here to sell you, do you know why I asked you to sit down?" The man took back the bracelet, but he didn't rush to put it on the counter, but walked to the back of the big table with his hand, and extended his hand to invite Shi Lei Sit down opposite.

"As I said just now, you are destined to come in. Generally speaking, in our street, there are very few strangers who come in after four o'clock in the afternoon. Basically, the people who come here are those who often trade here. Old customer. A friend gave me a box of good tea today. I was brewing tea. On a whim, I felt that good tea must have a good fragrance, so I burned a pot of incense that I personally collected. As soon as I lit it, you Come in, that's what I'm talking about."

Shi Lei hurriedly waved his hand and said, "I just happened to pass by, I was bored so I wanted to come in and have a look..."

"Fate can only be made unintentionally. If you come here with a purpose, it is not fate."

Shi Lei watched as the man brewed a pot of tea, poured two cups, put a cup in front of him with a bamboo clip, and gestured for tea.

After taking a sip of tea, even though Shi Lei didn't know much about tea art, he still felt that this cup of tea had a lingering fragrance and was very delicious.

"How about the tea?" The man asked casually, looking at Shi Lei with a smile in his eyes.

Shi Lei put down the teacup, thought for a long time, but couldn't find a suitable word to describe the taste of the tea, so he said: "Good tea."

"Gone?"

Shi Lei was a little embarrassed, lowered his head embarrassedly and said, "I don't know how to drink tea, and I don't know much about tea. Just now I really wanted to find words to describe it, but I found no words after searching my brain. I can only say good tea."

"Haha, this is the highest state of tea tasting. There are no words of praise, only the simple word "good tea". There is another allusion about the word "good tea". , has something to do with tea sage Lu Yu."

Shi Lei nodded and asked: "You haven't told me yet, how did you know that I'm here for the first time and I don't know anything about antiques!"

The man poured Shi Lei another cup of tea, and then said: "Actually, it's your first time here because I see that you don't know anything about Wenwan. Because if it's not your first time , you have at least a superficial understanding of Wenwan, so you won’t be so surprised to see that the price here is quite high. As long as you have even a little understanding of Wenwan, you will definitely know what agarwood is. Gu There is a saying called the Four Wonderful Fragrances, which refers to the four best spices in ancient times. The first of these four spices is agarwood, and the other three are ambergris, musk and sandalwood .Even if you don’t know much about Wenwan, I’m sure you’ve at least heard of musk and sandalwood, right?”

Shi Lei nodded, and said: "There is a kind of rheumatism pain relief ointment, which contains musk ingredients. My impression of sandalwood is only the sandalwood fan I had when I was a child."

The man also nodded, and said: "What you said is actually not real musk and sandalwood. The former is artificial musk. If you really want to use natural musk for medicine, I am afraid that few people can afford the painkiller ointment. And the latter? , it is a handicraft, with a little sandalwood spice to smell it, if it is a real sandalwood fan, it will be very valuable."

"Hey, I really don't understand anything. I seem to have heard of Ambergris in TV dramas, but I haven't heard much about Chen Xiang."

"That's because agarwood is much rarer and more expensive than any other kind of spice. You can tell from the price in my store. The string I showed you just now can only be said to be barely acceptable. It’s just called agarwood. It’s very low in oiliness, and it’s produced by artificial means. Strictly speaking, agarwood is not the bunch of wood in my hand. This kind of wood is called white wood. It doesn’t have any fragrance. It is extremely loose, and it should be regarded as one of the woods with the lowest density in nature. Plants growing in the wild will inevitably be touched by insects, animals, or even flooded by lightning, which will leave scars on the white wood. Once the white wood is injured, it will It secretes a kind of oil to repair its own wounds. Over time, ranging from decades to hundreds of years, it forms the agarwood in my hand."

Shi Lei seemed to understand, and said: "Then the agarwood is actually the oil contained in this wood, the more oil, the more agarwood, so the price is more expensive."

The man smiled, took a sip of tea, and said, "That's right, that's the truth. Of course, there are many other situations in the process of forming agarwood. The price that made you exclaim just now is the price of agarwood. According to its formation method, agarwood can be roughly divided into water sinking, soil sinking and ant sinking. Both water sinking and soil sinking can be called inverted agarwood. The so-called inverted frame refers to the fact that after the death of white wood, some In the water, some were buried in the soil. After a long period of time, the part without grease rotted and decayed, while the part with condensed grease remained. What is in the water is water sinking, and what is in the soil is naturally soil sinking .As for ant sinking, it is caused by insect bites, collectively referred to as ant sinking."

Shi Lei only felt that his eyes and ears were wide open. This knowledge may be found on the Internet, but it is definitely not as clear and simple as what this man said.

"Nowadays, the natural agarwood is basically turned upside down, and those items that are made of ant agarwood have been bought out a long time ago. But because agarwood is a rare spice, there have been people who specialize in making shannon since ancient times. The method of slashing and contusion makes the white wood hurt and secrete oil to form agarwood. However, because the method is relatively simple, the agarwood formed in this way is basically only a thin layer on the surface. It is possible to use it as a spice or as a powder of incense, but It’s unrealistic to make hand strings to play with these. But with the development of science and technology, some people use hanging bottles to inject germs into white wood, so that it can continue to secrete oil. Agarwood Market."

It’s tiring to ask for tickets every day, but at the stage of new books, you can’t do without asking. Please bear with me. Anyway, I didn’t open a single chapter to ask for tickets, but I’m also considering whether to shamelessly open a single chapter, haha...