A review on agarwood and its quality determination

This paper presents a review on agarwood and its quality determination. It was found that Aquilaria Malaccensis is the main species in Malaysia and Indonesia. The agarwood has different quality or grades; similarly its essential oil. They are traded at different price according to their quality. Scientific reason showed that chemical compositions of agarwood make them different from each other, thus affect their quality. Physical appearances such as odour and colour have been used to grade their qualities. However the method has drawbacks in terms of subjectivity, poor reproducibility, time consumption and large labour expense. Therefore there is a requirement for agarwood and its oil to be graded according to their chemical profiles. This interest began to attract the researchers and also is mainly to ensure the quality of agarwood oil.