Olfactory Rescue Service

In my ongoing survey of Bhutanese incenses you tend to come a lot of incenses that smell almost the same. There is clearly a recipe at work that is interpreted really closely by a number of Bhutanese incense houses, and perhaps someday I’d want to do a cross comparison of, say, the pink to purple sticks that probably account for 75% of the country’s incenses. These vary a little, I’ve noticed slight differences between the ones that are probably aimed at the export market (these tend to have a lot more English on the boxes or wrappers) or those that aren’t. Those exported can be dialed down a little and honestly strike me as a bit cheaper when it comes to the main ingredients vs binder (or filler wood perhaps). But essentially this is all a bit nitpicky as they are very close in style and smell.

It is much rarer to come across Bhutanese incenses that are off the traditional map a bit more. A prime example I reviewed back in August, the “Specially Made for Paro Kushoo HRH Prince Namgyal Wangchuk” seemed to be one of these but it was most notable in how while it stuck largely to the traditional formula, it did so in a more deluxe fashion, with the quality of ingredients clearly of a much finer degree than usually found. But it wasn’t until the oddly translated “Cloud of Merit Wind Wisdom” that I met an incense that actually had some strong variation to the traditional pink/purple stick formula. On my first burn there was a part of the bouquet that really started to tug at a memory and maybe a stick or two later I had the aha moment, which was that this particular scent was reminding me of the great Shoyeido Horin coil Muro-Machi. The box doesn’t list any ingredients at all but I’d describe it as taking the usual Bhutanese formula and, at a guess, doing something with the spikenard that ups the interesting sort of caramel note that has been added to this formula. It creates a very distinctive incense that might have just burned its way to the top of my personal Bhutanese list, because while the original formula already has a complex array of ingredients, this secondary note increases that complexity significantly. Now unlike the Muro-machi it doesn’t have a great deal of aloeswood in it, or it’s certainly not the quality of wood often used in Japanese incenses, but there’s certainly enough of a similarity to make me feel that there’s some in the mix here, and that’s largely because this note has enough presence that the sandalwood in here isn’t as high up as it usually is in a traditional formula. That cherry sort of note common to this recipe has also been almost completely submerged. All of this adds up to something fascinatingly new, making one wonder how many other little monasteries in Bhutan might be shaking up the tradition a bit (or a lot). Because this is likely to be different enough I think any fans of Tibetan incense would want to give it a try. I absolutely love it, it’s easily my favorite from the country to date, a veritable Bhutanese-Japanese fusion really. Another great find by Incense-Traditions.ca.