Lhochok Palgeri, Namdroling Monastery Tibetan Herbal Incense, Sera Thekchenling Lachi Society / Thekchenling Incense and some thoughts on words like natural, synthetic, organic and so forth.

April 8, 2024 at 8:28 am (Agarwood / Aloeswood / Eaglewood, Cardamom, Incense, Juniper, Kusum, Licorice, Mike, Myrrh, Nepal, Perfume, Resins, Saffron, Sandalwood, Spice (Cinnamon Clove Nutmeg etc.), Spikenard / Jatamansi, Vetivert / Khus)

The first thing all three of these incenses have in common is that the contact information is the same post office box in the Mysore District of Karnataka State in India even though all the incenses are presented fairly differently. The second thing is that all three of these Tibetan style incenses have major perfume presences and in that sense are actually a completely different family of incenses than your normal Tibetan, Nepalese or Bhutanese incense. I can’t tell if these are legitimate monasteries or if there’s one company at work here designing these incenses to look authentically Tibetan but their similarities are too strong to discount them all from being a line designed by a Mysore area perfumer/incense factory. Some research on the PO Box shows that a number of Tibetan monasteries use it, and I’m assuming their products all come out of this same, for lack of a better word, “clearinghouse.”

And so to take a quick tangent (if you don’t want to read some of this, just drop to the next picture) because it’s a subject that comes up so a lot, what do we mean by perfumed? Natural? Organic? Synthetic? First of all, I’m (obviously) not a chemist or laboratory expert and the incenses we evaluate here, at best, come with an incomplete list of ingredients and/or various promises of how natural or cruelty free or vegan or whatever the box or marketing material contains. It probably should be understood that these various descriptions tend to be from a give and take between manufacturers and importers. From the perspective of ORS and the things we have learned over the year (mostly rumors and conjecture to be honest), we think it’s as close to certain as we can be that Indian incenses, especially over the last few decades where famous natural scents have been severely depleted, use other, largely unnamed ingredients meant to duplicate natural scents. And we believe that when incense companies say “natural” they may not mean it in the same way Americans do. Say there are naturally produced chemicals from organic materials that are altered in a laboratory to imitate a particular scent, is that something you would consider actually natural or not? I think the concern is generally whether synthetic chemicals (or especially toxic or dangerous chemicals) are used in an incense, and I would think in most Indian incenses, even possibly in some incenses where the word “natural” is used, it’s quite possible, even entirely likely, synthetic chemicals are used to some extent. But again without test results about the only thing I can trust is my natural reaction to an incense that is making me uncomfortable.

A selling point on any incense box isn’t going to be “synthetic chemicals used” because absolutely no one would be buying it. Lhochok Palgeri is described on the box as a “Superior Quality Incense.” Well maybe, but that’s a marketing tool right? It’s also described as “A Tibetan incense purely handmade with authentic herbal ingredients, carefully sourced and handpicked specifically from the sacred Himalayan Ranges.” I don’t see any reasons to believe any of this is untrue but what it’s not saying might be even more important, especially when you get a whiff. Because there’s a huge difference between any incense that does and doesn’t use oils or perfumes of some sort and it’s completely obvious these are being used if you can take the fresh batch of unburned incense and give it a sniff or two. If it’s popping with scent (or smells kind of wet) then oils/perfumes are being used. However, the presence of oils doesn’t necessarily tell you what kind of oils they are, they could be anything from a mix of natural essential oils to synthetic perfumes and all points in between. I’d imagine much of this is based on expense. Lots of essential oils are cheap and probably easily enough used in their natural state. So how do we know what is what? Well for the most part we don’t know. I think many of us who have used incense for a while evaluate the possibility by allergic reactions. Does the aroma get you stuffy or sting your eyes or maybe even make you nauseous? Well some natural ingredients probably do that too, but if your body is telling you all those things then you probably don’t want to keep using them whatever is the case. Think of backflow cones, and the smell that comes from adding chemicals to make the smoke sink instead of rise. How is that making you feel?

And to get back to Lhochok Palgeri, the statement about authentic herbal ingredients can be true while they’re adding synthetic ingredients or chemicals too. Mark my words though, I don’t know if that’s true and if I’m actually being objective, I can literally only guess, but again, it’s often what is not said, not what is. Even when the company may be telling you something, hell even when I am so close to certain on something, I’d still have some room in my head for the possibility it’s not true. I’m afraid unless I see some lab or chemistry report of an incense handled by a trained scientist in aromatics with a list of ingredients, I’m always going to be more reserved in my opinion and not pass through comments that have their facts mixed up. So enough about that…

OK now I am really back to Lhochok Palgeri, but I really set this all up because it came in an order from Monkcense, a nice little Etsy shop with a whole bunch of incenses I had not heard of before and the owner was really kind enough to send along a whole bunch of inch long samples of other incenses they carried and after trying over half a dozen of them, I realized they were all like the three incenses I’m going to review here, in fact with samples so short a lot of them actually smelled exactly the same to me. They feel at base traditional Tibetans but they have been practically steroid-infused with some really strong perfume/oil mixes and I was surprised to find that at least so far while I didn’t consider these mixes bad on the face on it, sometimes they aligned really well with the bases and sometimes they set off a whole lot of pinging and ponging. And so I have coined all these as “perfumed traditionals.” Lhochok Palgeri is as good as any other incense to start with in this vein, in the sense that absolutely no ingredients are listed here. This incense actually remind me mostly of the kinds of Indian charcoals that will have mixes that blend florals, cooking herbs and all sorts of other things into incenses that are really hard to parse. Burning this I’m reminded of like dill or celery seed combined with something evergreen and some fancy floral all at once. Some of the aspects I’m not even sure I’ve smelled in a Tibetan incense before, so it starts off being really fascinating. But my gut feeling is strongly wondering what I’m going to feel like after 5 or 10 sticks of this? Is it going to get under my skin or start to irritate me? Because it feels like almost everything in this is dialed up to the loudest volume possible, like nothing was structured to act as foreground or background so it kind of rolls up into white noise. And if you use ash to burn these, these incenses will sometimes transfer this massive aromatic punch to your ash. So despite that this is an original mix, I feel with every stick it’s just a little too powerful or overwhelming, even more so than some of the loudest Indian charcoals and masalas.

Now while Namdroling Monastery Tibetan Herbal Incense is purportedly from a monastery it holds the same postal office box that Lhochok Palgeri has; however, it does look like this monastery is in the same district. This time ingredients are listed: juniper, liquorice, agarwood, myrrh, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, spikenard, nutmeg, saffron, vetiver, kusum flower, sandalwood powder, and resins. What I noticed right away is the spices like cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and nutmeg were all much more highly concentrated in this than they usually are in a Tibetan incense, most of these are clearly carried on a wave of perfume oil. I don’t imagine that any of these ingredients are cost prohibitive to fake so the strong spice front seems pretty genuine to me, and it is actually quite nice. But even if this oil is natural or mostly natural it is still loud as hell and so up front that it practically lives in your nostrils. And this is coming from someone who has been incense saturated for decades at this point and actually doesn’t mind loud Indian masalas that often overwhelm a good fraction of the community. Think of the kind of cinnamon you’d get from a concentrated bottle of essential oil and imagine firehosing it in all directions. OK I exaggerate of course, but one good way of telling you how powerful this is is lighting two sticks of it at once. Anyway, the point of this once again is subtlety is lost here, or perhaps it is if you don’t have a room big enough for this to dissipate and spread out. And you really need that for an incense so heavy in spice. And believe me I want to like this and actually do on some level, but the perfume is so intense here it almost smells like charry wood or some type of overheating. But after Lhockok Palgeri, it’s hard to really look it at the same as the dozens of other actual Tibetan monastery incenses that, if they use oils at all, do so in a measured way that doesn’t overtake anything going on in the middle or bottom. It feels like there’s a company at play that creates these for monasteries or, well, yeah I won’t go there…

The same PO box is listed for Thekchenling Monastery Incense as well; it is apparently marketed by Sera Thekchenling Lachi Society. Which is perhaps a little odd when you consider that Sera Thekchenling Monastery is in Lhasa, Tibet; it is apparently one of the biggest monasteries in Lhasa and something of a tourist stop. But as the incense is still part of this family of incenses with the perfumes, it is certainly curious about how all this works. Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be an ingredient list on this one, but it is definitely quite distinct from the Namdroling. Thekchenling Monastery Incense goes for what feels like an herbal-floral mix, one not terribly far off the Lhachok Palgeri. There are some obvious woods on the bottom, but just like with the other two, everything else in the mix feels pushed up front due to the weight of the oil mix. Because of this it’s very hard to parse anything specifically. My thoughts were sort of like somewhere between a ganden grass/mild cooking herb meets a very perfumed white flower floral mix. In fact what strikes me as so odd about these three incenses is the mix of traditional and modern. I should also mention that after this went out I could still smell the afterscent of this incense, even after giving some time in between sticks, louder than the one I was trying to remember. That is a lot of oil if it’s going into the ash and staying there.

So ultimately these are not incenses I would really classify as monastery incenses or even traditionals. Some of what I’m smelling I would be hard pressed to be found in an old recipe, there is just too much in the way of the kind of modern floral scents you might find in Shoyeido or Nippon Kodo perfumed sticks for that. In a way the fusion is definitely kind of interesting, but I also find it pretty exhausting, loud and relentless. Some of this is just the sheer power of the incenses, but it’s also this sort of weird conflict between pretty florals and the rugged herbal/woody catalog of most Tibetan incenses. I’m always left questioning whether all this oil on top is drowning anything out as well. Ultimately by the time one of these long sticks burns down I feel that it’s kind of worn out its welcome, I’m starting to pay more attention to how I’m feeling than the aroma itself. What this meant for me is the dozen or more incenses in this vein I tried samples of I’m not likely to buy full boxes of or review because the fatigue would ultimately be grinding. Use sparingly if you try them and experiment first with how much space you have as these are likely to be too much for a lot of ORS readers.

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Chagdud Gonpa Foundation / Riwo Sangchod Incense, Unsurpassable Healing Incense (P’hul-Jung Men-Po)

April 8, 2024 at 8:10 am (Agarwood / Aloeswood / Eaglewood, Artemisia (Mugwort, Wormwood), Betel Nut, Cardamom, Cedar, Chagdud Gonpa Foundation, Frankincense, Ginger, Incense, Jasmine, Juniper, Licorice, Magnolia, Mike, Musk, Myrobalan, Nepal, Olive, Red Sandalwood, Rhododendron, Saffron, Sandalwood, Spice (Cinnamon Clove Nutmeg etc.), Spikenard / Jatamansi, Valerian / Sugandhabal)

It has been a really long time since I did new reviews of Nepali or Tibetan-style Indian incenses. In the current era I don’t know if there is one dominant shopping point for these types of incenses like there was when Essence of the Ages was active, although Hither & Yon in Hawaii is a good source for lines like Dhoop Factory and you can usually find a lot of the more common Nepali incenses through places like Incense Warehouse. The problem, which is something I don’t think you find in actual Tibetan incenses, is there are a lot of poor Nepali incenses. When I explored them back in the 00s I ended up getting rid of a great deal of them because they were basically just unpleasant and cheap woody incenses without much in the way of aroma. The worst felt like bad perfumes on junk sawdust. But of course this isn’t true of all of them (several of the Dhoop Factory incenses are upper echelon Tibetan-style incenses in my book). Nowadays there are a number of smaller shops on the internet and across Etsy that actually show there are multiple traditions (or maybe exporters) of these sorts of incenses. I even dug up what appears to be a rather interesting line of perfumed Tibetan-style incenses sources in India. So I got busy and have ordered quite a few Nepali incenses, just mostly going on intuition to pick things out. Along the way I’ve also rediscovered sources for things I reviewed way back and will update those accordingly. The first two here are incenses handmade in Nepal for California’s Chagdud Gonpa Foundation. Both of these can be found at the Tibetan Treasures online shop.

Riwo Sangchod reminds me most of the Tashi Lhunpo Shing Kham Kun Khyab red stick I reviewed almost 16 years ago, although since it’s been that long I would imagine this one isn’t quite as deluxe. It’s possibly the Nepali equivalent of a Bhutani red stick (there are two Riwo Sangchod incenses from Bhutan in the Tibetan Treasures catalog as well) but obviously having a completely different scent profile. It has an impressive list of more than ninety ingredients, including sandalwood, betel nut, aloeswood, juniper, musk, frankincense, wormwood, cedar, rhododendron, spikenard, wild ginger, magnolia, valerian, myrobalan, seashell, jasmine, cloves, cardamom, saffron, olive, licorice, gold, silver, turquoise, amber, and silk brocade. And as you can imagine, with such an impressive list of ingredients (I think this is my first with turquoise or silk brocade!), everything has been blended down to a completely composite aroma, one that is friendly and sweet on top while still having quite a bit of complexity swirling around beneath. Like in Bhutanese incenses, this has characteristics I’d describe as woody and berry-like all at once, it’s clearly not a Tibetan secret to pair these aspects together as they’re always a really friendly match. This isn’t a spectacular incense, I wouldn’t even call any of the Bhutanese equivalents spectacular either, but what they are is light and really accessible. And at least in this case the ingredients feel up to snuff and not at all watered down. Several sticks of this more or less confirmed my static opinion of this one, but keep in mind what I said about the complexity, some of the subscents churn underneath and show up in different temperatures so this one isn’t being phoned in. The subtle woodiness is quite nice here.

Perhaps even more impressive than the Riwo Sangchod is Chagdud Gonpa Foundations’s Unsurpassable Healing Incense, one of the few Nepali incenses that actually approaches the level of some of the better Tibetan incenses. Thanks to the categories here I found that this was also in Anne’s Top 10 in 2011! It has a similar ingredient profile to the Riwo Sangchod, with juniper, white and red sandalwood, saffron, valerian, magnolia, musk, aloeswood, myrobalan, olive, jasmine, clove, rhododendron, powdered seashell, frankincense, licorice, cuttlefish bone, wild ginger, betel nut, and powdered alabaster, but even though there are some similarities to the berry/woody mix of that incense, the ingredients add up to something a lot more complex. The first thing I get is some top layer of peppery spice. Second the middle with the woods and saffron. There’s definitely some musk in the mix which is almost entirely absent or at least not noticeably present in most Nepali incenses. As the smoke spreads out more of the incense’s floral notes come out a bit more as well as what seems like a bit of an agarwood note. It only remains noticeably Nepalese by the base which, despite all the other ingredients, still seems a bit (too?) high in juniper or some other cheap sawdust content. Also present are some of the notes found in the Riwo Sangchod as if the incense fractalizes at times. Ultimately there is really a lot going on this one and it can be intensely fascinating to realize that it might take some time to see it at as recognizable rather than ever-changing. In fact I really liked Anne’s description of this as an “all rounder,” it’s almost the perfect way to summarize it in a couple of words. Recommended for the patient.

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New Mandala Trading source

February 26, 2024 at 12:53 pm (Administrative, Incense, Mandala Trading (Art & Incense), Mike, Nepal)

I’ve changed all but one of the links on the following pages to the Everest Trader Etsy page as Pat just received fresh stock in of all these incenses, except the Himalayan Herbal Incense:

In terms of incenses, batch variation is always an issue with incenses of all different types and I will try to share changes in these when I have hard evidence. I’ve always felt that two of the best Nepalese incenses are the Himalayan Herbal and Tibetan Monastery incenses from Mandala Trading, they are available in many shops in the US that sells Tibetan incenses. I reviewed these both a little over 15 years ago. Before restarting ORS a few years ago I purchased the top box from Sensia. I was disappointed with the aroma at the time, it wasn’t quite what I remember and as in most cases it just gets kind of pushed to the back of my mind. One expectation that you can have is that an incense can change and never come back again, or at least for sure this is true in incenses with rare ingredients in them: sandalwood, aloeswood, halmaddi etc. While I’m not sure I could have explained the difference here, especially in that the inner wrapper has the ingredients actually listed, the ingredients appear to both be virtually identical.

I’m glad to say this new batch from Everest Trading is much more like I remember it, the stick is red and thick again and all the complexity has come back. The picture above is a comparison of the two boxes. So this is a case where something can actually move back to where it once was! I would imagine that the changes were probably the quality of the natural materials that came together to make the incense, perhaps a harvest wasn’t as up to snuff as it was in a different year. Anyway, in as many cases as I can get to, if I can note changes I will update a review page to say so (I’ve also been working through a lot of Shroff incenses, a company whose every batch shifts quite noticeably, and even a couple of Mothers). Thanks to Everest Trading I have new rolls of many of the others as well and will update these reviews as I go through them, although certainly based on this one, the batches look good! I’ve also confirmed that Mandala Trading and Mandala Art & Incense are the same company so that has been updated in the reviews index and I’ll eventually do so with the categories as well!

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Mandala Art & Incense / Ancient Tibetan Nagchampa Incense; Natural Nepali Dhoop / Pure Aromatic Nagchampa Dhoop; Traditional Nepali Dhoop Pvt. Ltd / Om Nama Shiva Dhoop; Unknown / Golden Nagchampa, Trimurti

October 4, 2022 at 11:09 am (Champa / Durbar, Champa Flower, Mandala Trading (Art & Incense), Mike, Natural Nepali Dhoop, Nepal, Traditional Nepali Dhoop Pvt. Ltd)

In addition to the Meena and other Indian incenses Everest Traders sent over, they also sent over a quintet of Nepali incenses. Since Essence of the Ages left the incense business, there has been a big hole where a solid source used to be for these incenses, as incensetraditions.ca carries primarily Tibetan and Bhutanese incenses only. Hither and Yon seems to be the primary source for Nepali incenses these days (note as always that “Tibetan” is also used as a style in the sense it means incense that does not use bamboo sticks through the middle, a distinction I need to make for later in this writeup) and there are a few others, but we’re always interested in hearing about new sources.

And it was interesting in looking around a bit that the first incense that pops up at Hither and Yon is Mandala Art & Incense’s Tibetan Nagchampa, because Everest Traders is carrying it at a little over half the price. You have to go back to 2009 the last time I reviewed incenses by this long standing company and I don’t believe any of them were these tubes of 5″ incenses. But that brings me to one distinction I have to make. Nagchampa incenses, of course, are still some of the most popular incenses you can buy, but the Tibetan style versions of these are very different. Indian nagchampas, at least at their best, were only part the perfume from the aroma – part of their success was the marriage this scent had with a halmaddi-rich masala base, a combination often missing even from Indian versions these days. And so what you get from a Tibetan version like this one is the powdery and accessible floral scent on the base of a Nepali-Tibetan style. I have tried some Tibetan nagchampas I couldn’t wait to dump the package of, this version almost feels like it could be a standard to compare others to. Like a lot of Nepali bases there is a feeling that some inexpensive woods are used to ground the incense, but it at least gets over the hump of not having a bitter or conflicting base to it and the top note is certainly pleasant. Amazingly at times it even has something like a Japanese woodiness to it which is quite intriguing. And at this price it’s certainly well worth checking out to get an idea of what one of these is like.

So how does the Natural Nepali Dhoop Pure Aromatic Nagchampa Dhoop compare? This Natural Nepali Dhoop incense is part of a large line that are mostly formatted as “Pure Aromatic Something Dhoop” and tend to be carried by shops that import Nepalis. Back in 2011 I was extremely nonplussed by the four incenses I tried in the line, or at least I think it was the same line, because I don’t remember the packages claiming what company they were from (which obviously could have changed in all this time). My issue with poorer Nepali incenses in general, when they show up, is that the bases use very cheap filler woods, I would guess poor quality juniper or pine, and at their harshest these impart bitter and campfire like notes that basically sabotage whatever it is the creators are trying to do with them. And I mention this as context as the incenses I reviewed back then were very much like this, but part of the issue was the oils used were also not pleasant. Fortunately the oil on the Nagchampa isn’t harsh but it also doesn’t have quite the resolution of the MA&I version and while the base isn’t too bad there are still some notes in the mix that are a bit distracting. It’s also perhaps a touch less sweeter. But it does have some interesting floral notes and the base is certainly more workable than what I would have expected. I’d certainly start with the MA&I version as ultimately they are close enough in style where you’d only need one or the other and I would expect this latter version to end up fatiguing.

So in order to properly review Traditional Nepali Dhoop Pvt. Ltd.’s Om Nama Shiva Dhoop (I could not find an ebay link to this at present, but will add when I’m made aware of it) I thought it worth queueing up the great Steve Hillage. Of the incenses in this review this is probably the most traditionally Tibetan of the five. It reminded me that outside of the great Dhoop Factory and a restock of Yog Sadhana it had been years since I tried a Nepali incense like this and it’s a bit of a shift from the Tibetan incenses from the autonomous region. The difference I think is largely in the base still and we’re given natural essential oils, flowers, spices, aromatic herbs, natural resins and other aromatic substances as ingredients, so basically the whole kitchen and then some. And like many of these incenses all of these things are blended as a whole and difficult to pick out separately, although I find this blend to be an interesting almost peppery meets tangy herbal mix on top of the woody base. The issue with many Nepali imports is whether they rise to level of something distinctive like so many of the autonomous region incenses do. So I would have to say that while this is distinctly aromatic and pleasant, it may not quite reach that level, but after a few sticks I’ve started to notice the resin peeping out a bit amongst all the herbal qualities so it may very well be a grower.

Moving to the Golden Nagchampa and Trimurti, we’re also moving from the Tibetan style to the bamboo stick centered Indian masala style. Both of these two incenses are from a gigantic line as well, although I’ve never known what company produces them from the wrappers themselves and never got around to reviewing any back in the day. Like the Pure Aromatic Dhoop, my experiences were not always positive in the past, nor have they been recent enough to remember all that well, but perhaps with these two we have a good example of what works and perhaps doesn’t. Golden nagchampas just by name usually imply a flora or fluxo style, in fact back when halmaddi was more prevalent, a golden nagchampa was likely to be a Sai Flora like incense in some fashion. That’s true here as well although mostly because the perfume has that similarity in the front, the stick here is generally not thick enough to be a true flora style. It’s mostly a dusted charcoal but it feels soft enough to perhaps have a little halmaddi in the mix and sure enough it’s overall a sweet and pleasant scent. And perhaps in the middle there’s a little bit of woodiness or base that will remind you it’s not an Indian stick, as I can’t really think of another Indian scent I’ve tried recently that fits this general area. It’s also quite a bit drier a burn than say so many of the vedic incenses I have been sampling lately that it also makes a nice contrast. One of the better Nepali-Indian hybrids I’ve tried.

The issue with Trimurti and this is one ORS staff discuss a lot is that when incenses are named after religious or spiritual concepts, gods and goddesses etc, it can be tough to get a bead on what’s actually going on in the scent and so I’m limited in my description to say how successful the Trimurti is for what it’s trying to accomplish. From my perspective Trimurti barely gets past its base which is some sort of nebulous mix of evergreen woods. It’s also a bit spicy and I would guess there might be a bit of something like myrrh or gugal gum in the mix. What is perhaps missing and I can compare this to the Golden Nagchampa (which has it) is an intensity in aroma that makes it a bit more memorable and attention arresting. I do seem to remember the line was full of incenses like this. It may be entirely because the line is using 100% natural ingredients and not any sort of perfume wizardry, which would largely be in keeping with many Nepali incenses. But keep in mind as well if this is something you might recognize as an aroma you like you could feel differently from me.

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Kunlha Incense: Jetsun Dolma, Lotus Pema, Shing Tsa, Pangpoe, Loong Pö

June 18, 2015 at 8:42 pm (Cedar, Cypress, Juniper, Nepal, Ross)

These are produced by Kunlha Incense, which is a small family business. They are made without any animal materials and also seem to be made of very high quality herbs and woods. They are also pretty much “non sweat sock” or “funk note” in style. At the same time they are very approachable to a pretty broad range of people if you don’t demand the above two stylistic elements. Other than Loong Po there do not appear to be any oils used. At this point I have re-ordered three times so I am pretty sure I like them 🙂

Jetsun Dolma (Green Box): I think this is modeled after Green Tara as it is listed as “curative and healing incense”. The scent is a bit heavier then any of the other sticks, which might be valerian or mugwart. It is also very relaxing (to me at least) and is great later in the evening. This one seems to be herb heavy with some wood notes in the background. I find it fairly pleasant but not something I would use just for the scent.

Lotus Pema (Yellow Box): This is the wood scent one hopes to find when trying out anything that says “cedar” or “juniper”. It is beautiful, subtle, and very clean with no off notes at all. Really a great stick of incense in the pure wood style. This has become my “go to” woods scent. Highly recommended and I have yet to find anything comparable to it.

Shing Tsa (Blue Box): The cinnamon, rhododendron, and juniper in this blend seem to inter weave themselves yet at the same time you can sense each separately, which is a pretty good trick in incense or perfume. It can be very entertaining to sense them as they play out in the room. Great for mornings and afternoons. Really a well-rounded incense, almost Japanese in style. Uplifting and not overdone.

Pangpoe (Red Box): This is along the lines a of a fairly traditional “red stick” Tibetan incense. Lots of herbs and some woods totally blended into an overall combined scent profile. Classic but at the same time maybe not as much a standout like the three above. IMO, as always.

Loong Pö (White Box): This one seems to be designed as something to use for post work chill out. It has a mellower background scent then the Pangpoe with the addition of a perfume note added into it. Since my box is at least two years old and the note is still there (somewhat reduced) I am assuming there are some synthetic aspects to the scent. Essential oils or Absolutes, especially any floral’s do not tend to last that long unless tightly sealed, which these were not. However it is an interesting scent, like a light floral mixed with (maybe) aldehydes, pretty classic in style and not overwhelming at all. A nice mix and a pretty good stick that should appeal to many people.

-Ross

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Kyarazen’s Artisinal Incense: Song of Rain and Sea of Clouds

April 7, 2015 at 5:41 pm (Aakash Bhairab, Agarwood / Aloeswood / Eaglewood, Amber, Benzoin (Loban), Camphor, Borneol, Charcoal, Kyarazen, Marian, Sandalwood, Spice (Cinnamon Clove Nutmeg etc.))

Sea of Clouds

The unlit sticks of Sea of Clouds smell dry, bitter and woody with a hint of borneol that adds its customary energetic uplift. I think I smell a sprinkle of dry white pepper and a hefty amount of sandalwood. The burning stick initially smells vanillic sweet. Then creamy sandalwood waltzes in, smooth and wavy and very light on its feet, smelling of mellow woods and coconut. It’s so strange that I can’t smell the camphor at all. I imagine it’s the invisible charioteer, content to drive the gently drifting and weightless wood skyward without contributing a scent of its own.

When I smell sweet agarwood incense I’m always charmed and feel as though I’ve rediscovered something very wonderful, however the bitter sticks are the ones I come back to again and again and again. Sea of Cloud’s bitterness is tempered by age-earned ease and gossamer grace, a welcome, unburdened bitterness that makes me feel determined and secure as I enjoy it’s meditative flight.

Sea of Clouds is an agarwood kiss, a breath of wood spirit, a floating puff of sylvan stillness. It takes me away, not on a wild adventure or a child’s fanciful daydream, but on an intent, silent pilgrimage made in earnest joy.

 

Song of Rain

As soon as I removed Song of Rain from its plastic sleeve I was really surprised! I wasn’t expecting to smell such strong, thick, sweet spiciness! The unlit sticks smell very ambery- lots of caramel (is that benzoin?) – accompanied by cumin, turmeric and cassia. A bittersweet chocolate makes me wonder if patchouli is the source of the herbal element. Before it’s lit, Song of Rain reminds me of a gourmand-smelling zukoh, but while it’s burning the sweet and spicy notes recede and woody and subtly animalic notes become much more prominent.

This is not the song of a suburban Spring shower. I smell the rainforest after a stampeding downpour, the sweet loaminess of sodden earth, the sour bitterness of fungus-laden bark and the damp thickness of heavy air. It’s easy to imagine green crested lizards scurrying beneath sinking rocks, birds of paradise seeking shelter under the spreading canopy and the drenched gray coats of squirrel monkeys glistening silver with sun-warmed droplets. While many amber incenses are way too sweet for my personal taste, Song of Rain balances sweet spiciness with herbal, earthy and plum skin agarwood notes. It’s a rain I’d happily sing in and a song I’d happily sing!

 

 

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Shambala Incense

September 29, 2011 at 7:13 am (Evergreen, Incense, Juniper, Mike, Nepal, Sandalwood)

Not sure who dreamed Shambala Incense up, but this is a very vibrant Nepali-style Tibetan with a high ratio of good quality ingredients to base. There seems to be some juniper berry content as well as sandalwood, which puts this in very traditional red stick territory, however the good ingredients give this some interesting subnotes including one foresty and another slightly resinous. For this style, this isn’t a bad place to start at all, it’s very smooth and comes in two sizes.

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Natural Arogya Dhoop Incense/Bodhisatwo, Karmayogi, Mahadhup, Meditative, Vaidhyaraj

August 22, 2011 at 11:19 am (Amber, Ambergris, Author, Cardamom, Cedar, Floral, Guggul, Jasmine, Juniper, Mike, Nepal, Red Sandalwood, Saffron, Sandalwood, Spice (Cinnamon Clove Nutmeg etc.))

There isn’t a company associated with these five incenses that’s on the wrapper, but each has a full name that goes Natural Arogya-xxx Dhoop Incense, with each of the five specific names going where the xs go. These are fairly common Nepali blends you’ll likely find at most incense outlets, all of them packaged in paper wrappers and like most common Nepali blends, most of these really aren’t worth the cedarwood chips in the base.

One thing I’ve noticed really frequently when it comes to many inexpensive Nepali incenses is just how many ingredients can add up to zero. All of these incenses have long lists of ingredients, but when the full list really only makes up a small spot on the roster next to filler and binder wood, the list starts to feel less than trustworthy. It does me little good to know, for instance, if there’s agarwood or sandalwood in the incense if the quantity is microscopic. It’s almost like someone telling you they’re friends with a famous celebrity only to realize they just waved at them at an airport.

The first of these incenses, Natural Arogya-Bodhisatwo Dhoop Incense, smells of pencil shavings and juniper with a sour or bitter tang in the mix. Naturally, the list of ingredients includes solukhumbu, gosaikund, himla, jimla & mustang along with haro, barro, aguri, krishagur, gokul (one of the few I recognized), cinnamon and others. A teaspoon of sugar in a cup of coffee makes a difference, but that same teaspoon in a swimming pool full of coffee isn’t going to make much of an impression. None of the ingredients in the list do anything to distract you from the cheap, irritating smell. The list, however, does make me curious as to what it would smell like to burn a pencil fire.

Natural Arogya-Karmayogi Dhoop Incense is a resin heavy Tibetan stick in a style you’ll come across in other Nepali lines. I’m assuming from the ingredients most of what I’m smelling is the saldhup embedded in the red and white sandalwood mix. The somewhat marshmallow-like astasugandha is also fairly prominent, helping to give it some herbal depth. This isn’t a rare scent overall, but it’s one I usually like and so I’ve always considered this the best in this group. This is largely because the resins have the presence to make you forget about the binder wood, and not so much a judgment of its quality, which is still relatively low.

Natural Arogya-Mahadhup Incense (see how they did that?) lists sandalwood, gurgum, sunpati, jattamansi, rupkeshar, and dhupi. The jattamansi is fairly noticeable as the soft element in the front, to help make the overall bouquet somewhere between floral and woody, but this is largely because the florals are competing with the cheap woods dominating the whole stick. At least in this case the woods give off a little bit more than pencil shavings with some hints of Himalayan evergreen, but overall the incense still lacks too much personality.

The Natural Arogya-Meditative Dhoop Incense lists sugandhabal, bakchi, kut, ambergris, cloves, and cardomom, all of which seem to promise a rather excellent incense. The intensity of this stick lies somewhere between the Bodhisatwo/Mahadhup and the Karmayogi, in fact it shares a certain swankiness with the latter. It has a nice spiciness in the middle, a combination not very far from Mandala Trading’s Tibetan Monastery incense. This is a good example of where ingredients can transcend the base and not make you feel like you’re burning cheap stuff (relatively speaking). This has a nice clove burn to it and a genuine firey atmosphere I quite like.

The ingredients for Natural Aroga-Vajdhyaraj Dhoop Incense include kapur, dhupi, kumkum, saffron, nutmeg, and cinnamon. The black color of the stick makes me wonder if this is an Agar 31 attempt, but again, like with the Karmayogi and Meditative, the herbs are pretty swanky. Here you get that with the wood center, and the reuslts will remind most of tires and campfire wood. This is a good example, I think, of how certain Tibetan herbs aren’t likely to go down as aromatics with most westerners. And after so many sticks, this is one I feel like I can do without. The only ingredient that really comes out for me is the nutmeg.

Overall this is more or less your standard Nepali line, almost typical of what you’d get from a surface overview of the style. Like many inexpensive Tibetan incenses, these are heavy in cheap materials and rarely reach the promise found in their ingredient lists. Both the Karmayogi and Meditative will do in a pinch, but generally speaking you’ll find better incense elsewhere.

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Doma / Agar 31, Relaxation, Ribo Sangtsheo, Pyukar, Mandala, Special Incense

July 20, 2011 at 6:55 am (Agarwood / Aloeswood / Eaglewood, Author, Cardamom, Cedar, Doma Herbal Incense, Incense, Juniper, Mike, Musk, Nepal, Pangolin Scales / Nagi, Resins, Saffron, Sandalwood, Spice (Cinnamon Clove Nutmeg etc.), Spruce)

Doma Herbal Incense have a rather sizeable line of Nepali incense products that vary from the inexpensive to the premium ($18). Their products vary quite a bit in style, packaging and quality, but for the most part they tend to be pretty standard Nepali/Tibetan fare with the lion’s share of their sticks tending to inexpensive woods mixed in with light aromatic touches. This review covers about six different packages in the line.

The Agar 31 – Healing Incense (as well as the Relaxation) comes in these unusual flat sized boxes that aren’t really all that easily storable when you consider most Tibetan sticks come in long boxes or rolls. This is what I’d call a pencil shavings incense, even compared to other Agar 31 incenses, this has very little in the way of luster. It even has a strange, light floral note in the mix which is very unusual for this style. The black agar doesn’t appear to be very high grade and along with the herbs it just appears to flavor up a very overwhelming and cheap cedarwood base, which ends up being the dominant aroma.

Relaxation, fortunately, is quite a bit better, but that’s likely because the middle is filled up with resins rather than woods. Not sure if we’re dealing with frankincense, benzoin, myrrh or gugal gum here, although I’d assume it’s a mix of some of these that combines with a bit of herbal swank in the middle. It’s akin in some ways to both Yog-Sadhana and the swankier Heritage (or maybe a mix of the two), as well as the Natural Arogya-Karmayogi or Himalayan Herbs Centre Traditional Mandala. I like all these scents quite a bit, as well as this one, as they’re essentially like resin mixes embedded in Tibetan woods. Don’t expect fireworks, but it’s a good buy for the money and it holds up to any of the comparisons.

Ribo Sangtsheo is one of the biggest rolls I’ve ever seen in a cardboard box. The ingredients listed are cardamom, clove, spruce, hemlock, butterworth and benth, but like many inexpensive Tibetans with dictionary lists of ingredients, the incense ends up as the average. I kind of think of a scent like this as sour wood. It seems to have a great deal of pencil shavings mixed in with the other elements. Nagi? Sandalwood? Saffron? Musk? Maybe in microquantities but I don’t even think straining turns up much in the way of aroma. Then again, most incenses with the Ribo Sangtsheo name tend to be for inexpensive offerings and thus have as much traditional use as aromatic, so perhaps in the end this shouldn’t be held up to too high a standard. As an aromatic it’s not much of interest.

Pyukar is not an expensive incense but at least it doesn’t just smell like spiced up pencil shavings. Like one of the other higher quality Domas, the smoke is fairly low and there’s enough sandalwood to give it a bit of dignity as well as some benzoin and a light touch of spice. It’s still a touch on the sour side, but it’s also a bit similar to Red Crystal and thus bears a sense of familiarity. A touch better than fair.

Doma’s Mandala lists sandalwood, musk, saffron, juniper, and cardamom, but the deep red and thin base speak of cedar and/or juniper wood, and once again it’s difficult to suss out the ingredients on the roll (although strangely the saffron does manage to peak out). Overall this is one of those generic red Tibetan sticks with a strong nod to the campfire, with little to speak for it except for a slight sense of high alititude. There’s lots of incenses like these, after a while it’s difficult to really sense any great difference in quality from one to another.

Finally there’s Doma’s premium priced Special Incense which to be fair isn’t really worth a half or third of its price, given that it shares that tier with much better incenses. Still it’s easily the best Doma in this group. Like the Pyukar this is a low smoke incense and I’d guess in this case that’s due to the myrrh content. The scent is very clean and mellow, with quite a bit of resin and wood in the mix. The major difference to me from other Domas is the base wood quality is a lot higher than usual, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have it’s share of campfire associations. It does have that red berry juniper roundness, but then so do a lot of incenses at much more affordable prices.

Doma have quite a few other products, but based on the handful I tried here, I wasn’t inspired to check out any of the other incenses. In many ways the level of Doma quality is generally what you’d expect as a baseline for Nepali incense, there’s definitely some cheaper companies and a few much better, but what you’ll find in the catalog will generally be traditional and not too flashy.

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Shechen / Red, Blue, Riwo Sangchoe, Surpo

February 10, 2011 at 8:33 am (Juniper, Mike, Nepal, Red Sandalwood, Sandalwood, Shechen)

Shechen monasteries are apparently located in Tibet, India and Bhutan but it seems their incenses hail from Nepal, based on recipes from Mindroling monastery. Essence of the Ages carries four scents from Shechen, two in boxes indicated by their color, and two roll incenses. By price the two boxes seem to be the most premium items.

The Red box incense is slightly the premium of the two colored boxed and it’s actually no surprise that the recipe originally came from Mindroling as the incense here is very similar to Mindroling’s Grade 3 incense. It has that almost common mix of woods and berry found in many Nepalese incenses with some musky/dusty tones that are similar to the Mindroling, but I suspect the difference here is that Shechen probably uses herbal ingredients to get this layering. Overall this is a very common type of incense, but more or less a superior form of it, so well worth starting with here if you haven’t tried it.

If you have the Red it’s unlikely you’ll need the Blue which definitely seems to be sort of a Grade 2 version of the Red with a little more in the way of that filler wood/campfire scent. Given that the two boxes are only separated by less than $1, there’s really no reason to not go for the Red. The Blue’s rather nice on its own merits, but since the musky sorts of tones are more subdued (by replacing some of the red sandalwood content with juniper) it’s less interesting as a result.

The two roll incenses are much less impressive, both have very heavy amounts of cheap wood and little in the way of character, in fact both seem more ceremonial based than aromatic. The Riwo Sangchoe states the inclusion of red and white sandalwood on the wrapper, but I find it difficult to detect either. It does have maybe some slight musky/musty tones that are reminiscent of the Red and Blue boxes, but these tones leaven the rather dull woodiness very little. The Surpo isn’t much different, mostly made from filler wood material (probably cedar and juniper) but having some slight floral notes in the mix. The wrapper mentions ingredients like yoghurt, milk, butter, molasses, honey and sugar but I couldn’t really tell where any of these sat in the aroma.

There’s really not a lot new here if you’re already well stocked in Tibetan incense. I think I liked the Shechen Red more when I first purchased it, over time, it’s struck me as fairly static, but it’s a nice incense (although I’d guess you might find something similar in, say, the Stupa line at a more inexpensive price. Unfortunately the two rolls aren’t likely to do much more than irritate your sinuses.

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