So recently I did a sweep through my Tibetan incenses. It’s a chance to get a little more experience with them and change some impressions for the better. But as I went through everything, I realized I couldn’t find the Dirapuk Monastery Special Incense and it took me a little while to realize that it may have been this unprotected roll that I had put in a plastic wrapper that didn’t really protect it. I believe I had found the remainder of the larger fragments in a different tube after thinking it was something else and then remembered everything else had ended up in little pieces due to the fragility. But what this really did for me is make me realize that my previous review didn’t seem to be accurate. I can maybe only attribute this to a mix up that occurs with the prevalence of Tibetans starting with a D…Drepung, Drigung, Dhe-Tsang, Dirapuk and others. So, this is basically an update. However…
In the meantime incense-traditions.ca had started to offer a version with a cardboard tube (or actually maybe they always had and I had just come across it via search, because it’s not listed on their main page of Tibetan monastery incenses), so I reordered it. It absolutely does need this sort of protection. I found that what I was smelling here was really nothing like I had written about. I compared this newly ordered incense to the fragments and felt they were close, however I will note that the sticks are thicker now, so perhaps there was a commensurate adjustment for the fragility as well. This wasn’t really incense similar to the Holy Land tradition, it did not have that incense’s wilder characteristics or its saltiness and was a lot closer to an evergreen woodiness, but a woodiness with an intriguing mix of spices and herbs. A lot of this isn’t listed with the given ingredients: borneol, cinnamon, red and white sandalwood. The cinnamon you can definitely detect but the borneol feels so mixed in you mostly detect it in relationship to what else is going on. That would be the sharper edge over the top with the almost cookie/baking like spice more the sweetness in the middle. It does have a huge hit of musk but it’s neither the more animal like take on Holy Land or the sweeter more perfume like take. Perhaps like the borneol, the musk is more involved in giving some dimension to the other ingredients. Overall it’s a very strange mix, it feels less like it comes together as whole than it has a number of different aspects that impart an odd complexity to it. But it is undeniably fascinating.
For lack of a better definition, I find it fascinating that “boutique” smaller shop incense creators are not only working on new scents but improving or altering old scents. Voyager was 
First of all, Josh has explained to me that there’s a choice in the creation between the amount of binder in a stick and the choice of the more intense scent when there is less of this binder. In that sense, this is probably as far over to the intense scent side, leaving the sticks extremely fragile (more so than other comparable D5 sticks). Like just now I lit a fragment and as I held it the top half that was burning fell off! So keep that in mind, although I will say at this level you definitely do not get much in the way, if at all, of binder materials in the aroma. It is de-luxe. This new version of Voyager is thus a very pure scent and it also burns quite fast. First of all what I notice in this is this sort of an apple juice or apple cider type of scent which I think is largely due to the mix of woods as well as the cinnamon in the mix. So even before looking at my old review I am sensing something quite familiar somewhere in my scent memory. Now if I remember correctly, I don’t believe the original has this strength which brings out more of the sort of lacquer like qualities you get in better aloeswood. They are definitely being coaxed out here a bit more. It feels as well like the frankincense and camphor both merge nicely into mix, the camphor is actually on the edges of this in the best way. As the burn deepens, the aloeswood qualities really come out to the fore, giving a richness to the overall aroma. I might add too that I had to step out of my place for ten minutes, when I came back the area around my burner was still quite resonant of the scent of the incense, there’s no question there’s some level of strength going on in this.
Bhutan’s incense tradition is interesting in that while it may fall under the larger heading of Tibetan incenses, Bhutanese style incenses are rarely found outside of the country on their own, even in Tibet, Nepal or India. Within the country the styles actually make something of a narrow range. The primary style is a stick with a greater tensile strength than most Tibetan incenses and usually has a red color than ranges from a deep maroon to sticks a bit closer to pink or purple. While this can vary a bit, with about 20% of incenses being a tan color and maybe 2% being surprising variations, the red stick Bhutanese incense is the country’s mainstay, and it’s a mainstay that rarely varies even when different companies are formulating them.
Olfactory Rescue Service 
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