Planter U Manahsi and AK staffer Ring Htoi select trees for harvest

The future is not so bright that we've got to wear shades, but at least in Putao a way out of this mess is starting to make itself visible.

Our goal is to start shipping for the export market as early as July 2022.

Putao Snowland Agarwood

Taking care of a pet peeve of one of the directors, but also a good dusting-off and much-needed bit of housekeeping. Our sign had suffered the ravages of weather and ubiquitous mildew but is now nicely repainted.

This is what we're getting, acceptable in terms of quality and quantity, nearly as good as wild agarwood.

Now the real drudgery begins. An experienced carver can produce as much as 10kg of high grade agarwood per month

The whole crew being horse-whipped by Ko Ti Hpu Ye into carving better and faster. He thinks it takes as long as 3 months before carvers are working to speed.

U Lay May Sar starts to cut

Average of what we're getting in terms of finished product. By various published grading standards, this would firmly land in A grade.

Spring and Summer 2022!

As for everybody else on the planet, the last 2 years have been a total shit-show for the stalwarts at Snowland Agarwood.

In addition to the lovely ravages of COVID-19, here in Myanmar we got to experience a full-on Trumpian wet dream

of what happens when half-educated military people think they can run a government and an economy better than

real pros. The COVID strike on Putao was fortunately light, and the vaccines helped keep hospitalizations and deaths to a minimum. The military coup has shut down banking and made moving money look like something out of "Breaking Bad".

The good news is that we've started a long overdue harvest of trees that were inoculated as far back as the spring of 2018 and the results are fabulous. As the Putao trees are of 5 different species, 3 unique to Putao, we are seeing positive differences with quality and quantity of agarwood. From Agarwin-Keystone, Ko Ti Hpu Ye went up in mid-April to teach harvest and processing techniques; he is a Lisu nationalities member, and it was a treat for him to visit one of the centers of Lisu culture.