Just a short post to tell you that I setup the KZN Wood Library page, where you can find all wood species that I have used to produce Ubiks with so far.

You can access it by following this permalink:

You might notice that I put a smell rating on each species, and wonder what it is about. It is the perfect time to introduce my smell scale then!

Nearly all materials have an intrinsic smell. For many of them that smell can be exacerbated when the material is heated. Wood being a natural material, it can contain a wide range of molecules and compounds, some of which can be aromatic.

I do not think any wood can have absolutely zero smell, it is just impossible. But many have a very muted and neutral smell. While some can be quite perfumed, like Cedar which has a lovely smell but so strong it is used as insect repellent.

Depending on application, wood with strong smells can be perfectly fine. But in our case, and especially in Ubik that was designed from the ground up to preserve and exalt the taste of your plant material, any overwhelming taste would immediately become a problem.

I came up with this scale going from 1 to 5 for the sake of simplicity, and also because smell can be subjective and it is possibly the sense where humans experience the most variation.

1. Woods with this rating are the most neutral. If you shove your nose inside the stem hole, with some training you might recognize their particular smell but it is very light.
2. A good example of this rating would be Walnut, which has a somewhat stronger smell. You can definitely recognize level 2 woods when smelling inside the stem hole.
3. Those woods have a strong smell that you can not mistake. But not strong enough to affect the vapor taste in a noticeable way, or in the worst case just very slightly. Olive Tree is a good example, it has a wonderful smell that is quite present.
4. This level is borderline, the smell is strong and alters the taste of what you are vaporizing. It can be a pleasant taste, like the pipes our grand-parents used to smoke with, but it is definitely present.
5. This last level is when the smell is overwhelming and spoils the taste of everything you put in. I don’t offer any species with level 5.

Being a flavor chaser myself, I reject anything that would alter my herbs too much. The vast majority of the species I am using fall inside the first 3 levels. Level 4 species are really the exception and if you happen to select one I would make sure to tell you exactly what to expect upfront.