Sanbodhi / Incense Coils: Cold-Dissipation, Heat-Dispelling, Mind Soothing, Spirit Stimulation, Yoga

October 9, 2021 at 7:30 am (Cedar, China, Coils, Incense, Juniper, Red Sandalwood, Sanbodhi, Sandalwood, Stephen)

I have been trying to find other providers of this incense other than Amazon but Amazon seems to be the one bringing this Chinese/Tibetan company to the West. I have known of Sanbodhi for several years, as I keep trying to find more quality Chinese incense makers to showcase and discuss. Initially, I only had access to the Cold-Dispelling coils, which are among some of my favorite Tibetan Style smells. Currently, only a handful of these are left on Amazon but they tend to restock all five flavors so if you don’t see one, definitely check back. If I find a better source that keeps them in stock, I’ll edit this post. Also, as I find more information or even a website for them, I’ll update this post, but for now, Amazon lists them as operating out of China.

The can for Cold-Dissipation (no link due to out of stock) changes color as the first one was blue and the second was red. The incense inside has been the same. This is a formula I’ve encountered in different incense producers, and it often shows up as ‘Medicine Buddha’ or ‘Healing Incense’. It has a salty, woody front that reminds me a bit of a cheap aloeswood or a lower resin content aloeswood. There is a bitter-sweet follow-up of something medicinal, a smell that I recognize from multiple Tibetans, and I have always associated this scent with the ‘Medicine Nectars’ that Bosen lists in their ingredients. The marketing copy suggests that his is good for winter time, reducing the amount of dampness that cold causes (runny noses and phlegm). However that works out, I have always found this a nice cool temperature incense in that it tends to smell better when the temperature is cooler and more ashy and smoky when it’s warmer. As a result, I haven’t burned this as much in Hawaii but I used to burn it year-round in SF.

Heat-Dispelling seems very similar in scent to the Cold-Dissipation coil, but it seems saltier, less sweet with a slight juniper note. This claims to be good for dissipating the heat from summer, for preventing heat stroke and similar overheating types of conditions. As such, I imagined it was better to burn this when it was hot in the middle of the afternoon rather than a cool evening or morning. While I can’t speak much to the medicinal aspect, the smoke does seem ‘cooling’ in the same way mint or menthol can give off that cooling/refreshing feeling. This doesn’t have the same bitter-sweet center and instead it is more woody, reminding me of cedar/juniper blends.

I decided to hold off on reviewing Mind Soothing (no link due to out of stock) because I wanted to try it when things were getting rough. Well, it’s Monday afternoon and this was a particularly rough day with a lot of things breaking. So here I am lighting up the Mind Soothing coil and noting it’s a lot milder than the first two. It has a much more bitter presence, like more of the evergreen/juniper than the previous two and less of whatever the sweeter cedar wood used for the first two. I will say that it is kind of calming, just listening to the coil. I’m not sure if this is a cure-all for the worst day of your life but definitely more like a beer after work. As the wood scent builds up after it is about 20% into it, there is a note that wasn’t there at the start, and it is sort of like a breakfast cereal note. This is more like the smell of the inside of a box of breakfast cereal after you’ve removed the packaging. It’s part cardboard, part something sweet. It isn’t unpleasant, it’s just the closest parallel I could draw to what I’m getting off this note. While this isn’t going to be a strong room-scenting coil, it is definitely a relaxing companion and makes my recommendation list.

I decided to try Spirit Stimulation as a “first cup of the day”, before I have my normal tea. I wanted to see if it indeed stimulated me and got me going. I’m normally a morning person so perhaps this isn’t the best test but I do feel alert and focused. How does it smell? Well, I would say this scent is even milder than the Mind Soothing, so mild that I kept having to leave the room and come back in to really notice the difference because it’s subtle enough to just sort of ‘creep up on you’ and you don’t notice the smell as much because you’re in it. It is less salty and has more of a subtle wooden note with a few herbs. Almost like someone took a piece of pine and set a few aromatics on top of the pine and then it got set next to a old-fashioned steam radiator and the aromatics and wood smell subtly increase. Now I say pine but it is a kind of generic ‘warm wood’ smell as it smells like a sheet of plywood that is sitting in the sun, it doesn’t smell like combusting wood even though it is burning.

Yoga starts out with a much less mild and more spicy scent. I’m reviewing this almost immediately after Spirit Stimulation so compared to the previous, this has far more going for it. There is something like a hint of frankincense like you’d get with a good Lotus Ground. The salty woods are here but they take a back seat to the medicinal-frankincense type note that is in the foreground. The marketing copy on the side of the can says “This incense is prepared according to the Tibetan ancient incense formula to help the concentration in yoga practice. It is also used to relieve fatigue.” I feel like I agree with this statement and that while subtle, it is doing what it is supposed to all while smelling great.

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Huitong / Cure Disease, Taizhen, Solemn, Golden Light, Plum Blossom, Sky Dragon, Yun Hui Incense Powder (Discontinued or Unavailable Line)

June 1, 2011 at 9:45 am (Agarwood / Aloeswood / Eaglewood, Basil / Tulasi / Tulsi, Benzoin (Loban), China, Cypress, Discontinued, Frankincense, Galangal, Galbanum, Huitong, Incense, Mike, Rhubarb, Rosewood, Saffron, Sandalwood, Spice (Cinnamon Clove Nutmeg etc.), Spikenard / Jatamansi, Storax, Valerian / Sugandhabal)

While we do see a lot of incenses coming in from the Tibetan region within the political boundaries of China, Huitong is the first Chinese incense company we’ve been in contact with. In many ways Huitong might be considered the Chinese analog of Baieido in that all of their incenses seem to be made without the use of perfumes and oils, using only ecologically sound ingredients. What this means is that it’s been very difficult to do their incenses justice as to even pick up on their subtleties means you have to approach them like you do with Baieidos and “listen” to them.

This is essentially sort of a hybrid style, using extruded Japanese-like sticks to format what are essentially very Tibetan-like scents. So the most obvious comparison would be to Bosen’s Tibetan traditionals or even some of the Korean incenses, except as already mentioned that Huitong doesn’t use oils as Bosen does and the scents will be friendlier to Western noses than many of the Korean incenses. But one thing most of the scents have in common is they all have multiple ingredients and thus often don’t have the dominant sandalwood or aloeswood notes that tend to make categorizing Japanese incenses a little easier.

Cure Disease is described as a “kind of historic incense, which is mainly used for cure disease and health preserving. It was originated from Song Dynasty (960-1279 A.D.) and recorded in ancient books that burning this incense regularly could help to strengthen us both emotionally and physically.” The ingredients are listen as figwort root, spikenard, cypress seed, rhubarb, aloeswood, storax and clove.  As such, this type of mix reminds me a lot of some of the sweeter TDHF Tibetan ropes with a bit of fruitiness  in a much more refined format. Like with most mainland incenses, the aloeswood is quiet and mixed in but it works quite well to give the incense some heft. The results are quite pleasant, especially as the scent builds, almost like a mix of woods and grape.

Taizhen incense is the second of three Huitong incenses packaged in beautiful cardboard rolls. The incense “originated from Imperial Consort Yang of Tang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.) Consort Yang known briefly by the Taoist nun name Taizhen, was one of the four beauties of ancient China, she was the beloved consort of Emperor Xuanzong for many years. According to legend, Consort Yang treasured this incense very much and named it by her own Taoist nun name. Taizhen Incense is made from various famous and precious Chinese traditional materials according to the ancient spice formula.” The ingredients listed are sandalwood, Chinese eaglewood (aloeswood), saffron, cloves, jave amonum fruit, saussurea involucrata, rue, cogongrass etc. In this case the sandalwood is noticeably up front in a sort of freshly cut wood way. The other ingredients sweeten this base scent up in the same way they do in wood powder heavy Tibetan ropes. The Chinese Eaglewood gives the aroma a bit of roundedness and the front has a fruitiness not dissimilar to the Cure Disease, In some ways it’s like a nice, smooth low wned aloeswood crossed with Tibetan-style spices.

“Solemn Incense is one of the previous Buddhist incense. It was originated from Tang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.) when Buddhism was popular in the society. According to legend, when burning this incense, all the gods will pray to Buddha all together. It is usually used for practice Buddhism or reading at the home.” Like the previous two incenses, this is packaged in a cardboard roll. It contains sandalwood, aloeswood, mastiche, galbanum, and saruma henryi among other ingredients. It’s a very light sandalwood and aloeswood blend, with a slight fruitiness akin to the Taizhen (one wonder if this roll series might have some thematic similarities). It’s quite pleasant, again largely due to the fresh wood powder scent at the center. It seems like the galbanum might give the scent the fruity subnote. Like all good meditation incenses, it also has a slight ineffable quality about it. Solemn may not be as rich as the previous two incenses but in a way it’s the most successful.

Golden Light moves the packaging format to boxes and presents another tradional Buddhist formula from the Tang Dynasty, its name originating from the Golden Light Sutra. The ingredients are given as sandalwood, frankincense, basil and cypress seed and the incense definitely smells like a variation on a combination of those first two ingredients. As such it’s not terribly far from, say, a less refined Kyukyodo Yumemachi as if it was done as a Tibetan stick. This puts the incense in the general catgeory of the “daily incense” in that the ingredients here have less luster than in the other sticks. For the most part this is a woodshop sort of scent and as such it is also similar to the Incienso de Santa Fe bricks.

I’m about 95% sure the next incense I’m reviewing is Huitong’s Plum Blossom. Although the box wasn’t clearly labelled, the graphics seem to match the story which goes like this. “Plum Blossom Incense was created by Princess Shouyang, the daughter of Emperor Wu in the Nan Dynasty’s Song Era. Princess Shouyang was a plum blossom lover, according to the legend, one day when she slept beneath a tree, a plum blossom fell on her forehead, leaving a floral imprint. With the imprint, she looked much more beautiful. Soon, all the ladies followed her to paste plum blossom shaped ornaments on their foreheads. It was then called Plum Blossom Makeup. Hence, Princess Shouyang was crowned Goddess of Plum Blossom and this incense was also name Plum Blossom incense.” Plum Blossom is a coil incense (the coils are the same shape and size as many mainland aloeswood coils) and is made from spikenard, aloeswood, radix angelicae dahuricae, cortex moutan, clove bark and sandalwood. It’s interesting to see spikenard listed first as I didn’t sense it taking up a lot of the scent. Instead you seem to have the mainland take on something like Baieido Kobunboku done Tibetan style. That is the incense itself is centrally woody but it supports a sort of light floral mix that creates the plum blossom aroma and does so without the off scents one would expect with inexpensive perfume. It’s not spectacular so much as understated and like all the Huitongs, nicely done given the boundaries.

“Sky Dragon is a kind of precious Chinese traditional incense. It was originated from Tang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.) when Buddhism was popular in the society. According to traditional recipes, the incense requires several days of cellaring during production process.” Sky Dragon has a huge list of ingredients: rosewood heartwood, cloves, sandalwood, valeriana jatamansi, cogongrass, rue, frankincense, benzoin, ageratum, galangal root and cypress powder. The rosewood appears to be the central ingredient and the mix gives this stick a very different bent from the previous incenses which all have a substantive sandalwood component. It makes for a nice change, slightly anyway, because the rosewood doesn’t have quite the depth to carry it completely. Even the spices mixed in the other scents are missing here, leaving this one with a sort of campfire scent.

I didn’t receive any information with the last incense here, Yun Hui incense powder. This seems to be the deluxe item in the batch, as the powder has an intense richness that none of the sticks quite approach. Even fresh out of the box the spicy, fruity blend pops out of its small ceramic interior container. And maybe it starts with that container but it makes the whole incense reminiscent of Japanese kneaded incenses mixed in with the woody and powdery elements of Tibetan powders and ropes. This scent seems highest in good aloeswood content with subnotes of tea, caramel and butter on the heater. In order to get this review up in even a remotely reasonable time, I had to forego a sample of it on a charcoal burner but I may come back and add that. Needless to say, this is very good powder, reminiscent to some of the better Tibetan powders and I’m hoping to be able to get to know it better.

We’ll have some more Huitong incenses up for review somewhere down the line. Overall what reviewing these did for me, is really question the idea of what effects perfumes and oils have on an incense’s immediacy, because without them one’s work is a lot more difficult in trying to describe a scent as all of these, with perhaps the exception of the powder, are very quiet and gentle scents which will make you stretch to understand. Which is not at all a bad thing in my book. I’m actually overall very impressed with the sheer class and visual impression of Huitong. However, there’s one disclaimer and that these incenses aren’t easy to get at the moment, at least in the US and as I finish this up I realize I don’t have a URL. So I’m going to first direct you to Frankie’s blog where I assume one can leave a comment if you’re interested in purchasing, and I should be back in a few days with something a bit more direct.

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