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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Epika Earth / Celebration of Life (stick), Gentle Beast, Sacred Amber, Stormfire Tea, and some thoughts on a few backflow cones

February 23, 2024 at 10:30 am (Agarwood / Aloeswood / Eaglewood, Amber, Benzoin (Loban), Bergamot, Birch, Calendula, Cedar, Cistus (Rock Rose), Coconut, Cones, Copal, Cypress, Dragon's Blood, Epika Earth, Frankincense, Helichrysum, Incense, Jasmine, Juniper, Lavender, Mike, Musk, Myrrh, Oakmoss (Lichen), Palo Santo, Patchouli, Pepper, Pink Pepper, Rhubarb, Rose, Sandalwood, Spice (Cinnamon Clove Nutmeg etc.), Styrax Liquidambar, Tea, Tonka, United States, Vetivert / Khus)

Epika Earth / Rare Terra
Epika Earth / Artisan

This is the final installment for the most recent batch of Epika Earth incenses I received in my most recent Etsy order. They have so, so many more sticks and other goodies at their actual website and I am absolutely sure I liked most of their offerings enough to go for another order again in the future. There is something really warm and comforting about a lot of them. Perhaps its because so many of their incenses are essential oil mixes, but I like how these often create almost mythical libations, like you’re holding some amazing drink in your hand. The last group of these incenses are a couple that look like they are part of a Sacred line, a couple that are not part of any line and look like standards, and then a few backflow cones were also sent which are a bit more difficult to talk about as I don’t like the format while on the other hand these would likely be tremendously good cones if they weren’t.

So first of all we have the Celebration of Life stick (part of the Sacred line), which is different but obviously related in an aromatic way to the Celebration of Life dhoop that I discussed in the previous installment. The stick, naturally, is a much simpler blend but what I really love about it is it’s almost like some sort of mystical root beer or sarsaparilla in scent. Or add in cream soda, ginger ale or a plain old “suicide.” It’s a concoction reminiscent of all these things and maybe none of them. So maybe just mystical soda. However, when I looked this up to link on the Etsy site it was gone, and seemingly “replaced” by a 1 year aged version of the same blend. So while I don’t have the ingredients list on the original, I would imagine they would be like the aged version: frankincense, myrrh, cistus, benzoin resinoid, styrax resinoid, cinnamon, rose petals, helichrysum flowers, golden copal, white copal, Rose Bulgaria, agarwood, and sandalwood. And like in previous incenses you can see the styrax and copal which have often helped to give Epika Earth incenses this concoction like feel. I would imagine aging this would work in a similar way to the Cocoa Pods incense in the line, which certainly broadens the complexity of their incense, so it’s not hard to imagine this would improve and it’s already good thing. In the original I also got touches of chocolate, the rose and some apricot (which had me leaning more towards jasmine until I look at the contents). It wasn’t as spicy as the dhoop but they both share the wonderful brown sugar note that helps sweeten up the “soda.”

Gentle Beast appears to be one of Epika Earth’s standard line (or perhaps Artisan) and an incense a bit closer to those I usually associate with the dipped style, although we’re still not in territory where inferior or synthetic oils are used thankfully. However, this does appear to be a mix of a lot of different things, it’s both somewhat amber-like, herbal and having a noticeable vanilla note (see the tonka bean below), all of which is blended with a strong fruity mix that at different times smells like berries, apples, pineapple, mango or pears (seriously, all in my notes!) Among this mix are somewhat combinate reminders of anything from sage to patchouli and agave cactus. One of the reasons I mention all of these things is that the ingredients list looks a lot different (the incense was sent as an addition to my order from the company). Those are listed as: organic calendula, organic lavender, white copal, styrax resin, golden copal, dragon’s blood, sweet coconut milk, bergamot, pink pepper, cinnamon leaf, jasmine, tonka bean, blue cypress, cedarwood atlas and musk. I was considering a different incense the morning I typed this, in the sense that lavender can often be a bit of a sneak ingredient in all sorts of sticks as it can vary in intensity or style, but fronting resins isn’t an unknown method to get a fruity effect. I’d imagine the bergamot and other resins probably don’t hurt (I’m reminded of the apple in dragon’s blood sticks as well) either. Anyway, as you might imagine you might have a bit of fun trying to pick things out from what is basically an herbal-laced fruit concoction. And this is better than a lot of those, if perhaps as lacking in distinction as other fruity dipped mixes, although the herbal feel prevents that from going too far. [Note that the page I linked to describes this as a Rare Terra incense, so this may a case similar to the Celebration of Life where there’s a formula upgrade, but I ended up with an original. So keep this in mind with the link.]

The Sacred Amber is a quiet but familiar amber incense. It still has the concoction-like mix of most of the incenses in the Epika Earth catalog I have tried. The issue of course is that I would not normally describe amber in the context of essential oils in at least that so many amber incenses or notes often could be considered dry, powdery or otherwise (often even if perfumes are reaching for this). But with that said this does have a noticeable amber note. I wondered if this might have been an older stock as there is a slight charcoal note that peaks through that must be from the base. And hey when you look at the ingredients (rock rose extract, patchouli, vetiver, sandalwood, frankincense, myrrh, liquidamber, cedarwood, amber resin, black pepper) you can see that the amber scents do lean in the concoction direction. The positives of this one is that it’s a very gentle scent but I think that allows some of the ingredients to maybe push away from the amber a bit. All of that is OK, it’s more saying that while this is a nice incense, I’d describe it more as an amber variant, than something purer than that. But we’re still talking about a scent pretty close to familiar dipped incenses rather than the more breathtaking experiments we’ve discussed previously.

Stormfire Tea has the concoction idea right at the forefront. It is sort of in the same direction as the Shoyeido Xiang-Do (red) Tea, although this does not have the same sort of tea leaf resolution that the Shoyeido stick has. In some ways it’s not all that far from the Sacred Amber. The reddish color hints more at an herbal spiced tea and like the Sacred Amber it has a mild spicy middle to it. Interestingly, the ingredients include organic lavender flowers, organic white tea, cedar, birch tar resinoid, golden copal, styrax and sandalwood, and so the incense’s spicy notes don’t seem to come from the usual suspects as much, although I’d guess the woods probably provide some of these things. The cedar is pretty obvious in the mix, providing something of a southwestern note to the incense and the copal and styrax obviously help with pushing this over to an actual tea scent. It’s probably not my favorite of the Epika Earth incenses that remind me of drinks, but they still always do a good job with them and this will likely be found comforting and warming.

Epika Earth were also kind enough to send no less than three different kinds of backflow cones. As I offered to review their incenses prior to their seeing the information on our website, I thought I’d use this opportunity to talk about these types of cones first as they’ve grown in popularity since they started showing up however many years back. The simple idea for a backflow cone is a hole is drilled down the center and “something” is added to the mix in order to make the smoke heavy enough to come down through the hole and drift slowly down any number of artistically designed backflow holders. It’s absolutely understandable why people would think this is cool, as smoke pouring from a ceramic chimney or dragon’s mouth is a neat effect. I even bought a cool dragon backflow holder which I managed to break in the middle of these reviews, chipping off just the right spot (one of the dragon wings) that should have held the smoke in. But the thing is, even in practice you have to do a lot of shifting and have a lot of patience for the smoke of a burning backflow cone to make it all the way down to the bottom of a cascade. For me the smoke never got farther than the first slide after the dragon’s mouth and I think I got one cone to get all the way down to the bottom once.

Whatever is the case, information on backflow cones seems pretty confusing on the internet. There are lots of claims of these types of cones that they don’t use any chemicals and yet there has to be a difference between smoke that rises and smoke that sinks (and usually stinks). I would imagine this is just chemistry and physics. There also has to be some sort of reasoning for the abominable smells during and left after the burning of some of these cones on a backflow burner. The ones that came with my burner were absolutely awful and I even tried a Tibetan backflow cone which had the exact same issue. And then you can read on internet, recipes for these cones that are made no differently from a regular cone, at least as far as I can tell. My experience with backflow cones is not widespread but I can tell you I’ve never smelled one that didn’t have some sort of additive, whatever it may be.

And that’s no different for these three Epika Earth cones, although I will say I didn’t notice the same sort of foulness left from them that I did with the burner samples or the Tibetan incense I mentioned above. What I felt was disappointed simply because the mixes were actually really nice on these, but there seemed to be something in the mix that I associated with the sort of alcohol scent you can get with some of the oils except quite a bit stronger. For like the tip of the cone you’re good but then once it gets, I assume, to where the drilled hole goes down each cone, it started to get a bit too much for my tastes. Now I’ll be fair I’ve had this happen with a lot of non-backflow cones as well. I’ve never thought the cone was a satisfying format for an incense and it often felt this way perhaps because you need more makko or binder so the cone keeps its shape, or at least nearly every cone I’ve used gets irritating by the time it’s wide and down to the base. So I am probably not a cone’s intended audience.

And so reviewing three or four cones of these is not fully possible, both because there is a strength here that overwhelms any subtleties but also because that strength overwhelms me as well (and let me remind you I am usually OK with some of the loudest Indian incenses on the market). It is a strange experience going from wow that’s a really lovely scent to throat irritation and stinging eyes all in one cone burn, but that’s what each one of these does. The Angel Blood (dragon’s blood, styrax and patchouli) cones were first and I honestly absolutely loved the sort of dragon’s blood and styrax sweet “candy” mixed with some earthier patchouli. At first I was like wow someone made a backflow cone I really like, but then it ended at the first dragon slide and I got overwhelmed. I then broke the burner and had to sample the Rhubarb Berry and Oakmoss cone on one of my ash burners. Again at first I was really impressed, as all three (?) scents (the aroma profile is described as agave covered berries, rhubarb and black plum with highlights of fir needle and oakmoss) in a wonderful mix were really clear. Perhaps burning it away from a backflow burner helped mitigate the strength as it wound down but I was still sensing a lot of heavy alcohol and some sort of unknown scent towards the end that wasn’t agreeing with me. Saved for last since I don’t normally go for palo santo was the Winter Juniper & Palo Santo cone. This aroma profile is described as palo santo wood and juniper berries freshly thawed after a winter freeze. Triple coated with palo santo wood powder, sandalwood powder, golden copal resin and sweet myrrh. Strangely though on this one I don’t really get juniper or palo santo at all, which struck me as odd as the ingredients list on an Epika Earth incense can usually easily be identified. But again it started quite pleasant and was literally stinging my eyes by the end of it.

So to sum this up, these last three cones are obviously for people who love backflow cones and in that context they’re certainly better than nearly every other cone I’ve tried in the style, they’re clearly artisan and made with love. And of course I’d reiterate that I really enjoyed nearly every stick and dhoop I reviewed in all three installments, enough that I made an exception to my no dipped incense reviews rule. Epika Earth have certainly carved out a unique space in the incense community and I look forward to trying more of their scents. If you have tried any other of their incenses and wish to contribute, please post in the thread below!

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Fu De Si / Fu De Temple Incense

February 19, 2024 at 12:30 pm (Agarwood / Aloeswood / Eaglewood, Cedar, Fu De Si, Incense, Mike, Red Sandalwood, Rhododendron, Saffron, Sandalwood, Spice (Cinnamon Clove Nutmeg etc.), Tibet Autonomous Region)

I was realizing just in the last few days how many new incenses that Incense Traditions is bringing in from Tibet and Bhutan, it almost feels like just as I make a catch up order, I’ll be working on a review and then somehow come across a new batch. I will just say I am really appreciative of these efforts, these geographical areas are quite large, and it almost feels like every new incense puts another tack on the map. Tibetan incenses for me are often some of the most unexpected and innovative in the world, there are practically no limits to the types of aromas that come from incenses with such a wide array of ingredients to choose from. I try to get these reviewed as soon as I can (at least during ORS “in season” which is usually November-January, but is likely to stretch into April this year) but I sometimes rotate reviews out if they show out of stock. Unfortunately, lines can disappear about as fast as they appear as well, but for the most part IT work pretty hard to get incenses back in as available.

So along with the recently reviewed Dhe-Tsang Golden Essence and Dzongsar Traditional Incense, this review of Fu De Temple comes from an order made in November. I started to realize while writing this season’s reviews that I had gotten to some incenses I hadn’t had the requisite time to burn several sticks of, but even the sort of average 4-5 sticks I usually try to get through is sometimes not enough for some of these deep monastery incenses. There is probably no ideal way to evaluate them because in the end I find that burning a few sticks and then putting them away for a while so I can come back some months later and reevaluate probably shifts my impression of them for the better in most cases. And the Fu De Temple has all the hallmarks of an incense that needs a lot of time. It’s quite unlike anything I’ve tried previously from Tibet.

I had been meaning to share a bit about this process because when you get to an incense like this, you know you have your work cut out for you. Fu De Temple is a very different and somewhat difficult incense even though it includes the common ingredients of cedar, saffron, white and red sandalwood, agarwood, nutmeg and rhododendron. It’s perhaps the cedar that is the most noticeable first as it’s probably the source of the incense’s mesquite-ish or even barbeque like top note, as soon as you smell this you know you have something different on hand. The incense does seem affected by burner placement and room temperature, so I moved it around a bit. During one burn, I noticed much more of a pepper spice in a concentrated way; in a different area the saffron and rhododendron really come out and the woods and pepper spice open up to a much gentler middle. And it actually took me a few sticks before I even noticed all the sandalwood, probably because there’s so much spice up front.

The thing that really strikes me about Fu De Temple is somewhat analogous to switching from a drink with sugar to a drink without it. This is not a sweet incense by any definition and the effects of this often made me crave for something to make it friendlier, which was kind of fascinating as it was an indication the incense was pushing me outside my comfort zone. Even the spice in it doesn’t lean towards the usual sort of cinnamon/clove axis found in most incenses, it is more akin to southwestern or Mexican cooking. And then just when you think you can leave it at that, you find moving it around leads to certain areas opening up more and it’s here where you can see that this is likely a hidden gem, as these areas give way to mixes that are really new and intriguing. Ultimately, I’m not sure this is the kind of incense you want for like a friendly aromatic effect, it’s more something that will stretch your aromatic experience in new ways. And it has for me to a point where I want to rest it and come back to it later with fresher impressions.

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Epika Earth / Artisan / Ataraxia, Celestial Opium, Jaz Mocha, Celebration of Life (dhoop)

February 14, 2024 at 8:29 am (Agarwood / Aloeswood / Eaglewood, Agave, Balsam, Benzoin (Loban), Birch, Cedar, Chocolate, Coffee, Copal, Cream, Epika Earth, Frankincense, Guaic, Helichrysum, Incense, Jasmine, Labdanum, Mike, Myrrh, Oakmoss (Lichen), Orange Blossom, Patchouli, Rock Rose, Rose, Sandalwood, Spice (Cinnamon Clove Nutmeg etc.), Styrax Liquidambar, United States, Vanilla)

Epika Earth / Rare Terra

The second installment of Epika Earth incenses are a group of incenses labelled Artisan, three sticks and one incense in “dhoop” form. Based on a different incense on the line, Epika Earth describe these: “Our artisan blends are made entirely with natural ingredients that include essential oils, extracts, resinoids, woods and herbs. While creating the extracts, essential oils and crafting our artisan blends we use our own proprietary methods to protect and maximize the aroma of the ingredients in order to bring you the pure scents of earth in incense form.”

Ataraxia makes me consider how I may have received it without first trying some of the other sticks in the Epika Earth catalog to compare it to as it has some of the same ingredients and smells a bit similar to the Bacchus I reviewed last installment. However, I haven’t really start noticing the complexities of these incenses until the third or fourth stick so it’s fairly essential to give them a bit of time. Ataraxia includes birch, styrax, labdanum, benzoin, golden copal, white copal, sandalwood, aloeswood, myrrh, patchouli, agave and beet juice (for color). The description of notes on the Ataraxia page also describe the aroma of the incense as the “Complex and continuously evolving scent of amber, woody, fruity, dry musk, leathery, sweet, birch, slight ozone and animalic.” I definitely don’t have too much issue with this description as all of these notes revolve out of the burn, and what you pick up depends on what you’re paying attention to at any given moment during the burn. It should be noted that while this incense includes several ingredients that really gave a concoction-like feel to Bacchus (something that is fairly common when most of the ingredients are coming from oils), Ataraxia feels like a somewhat drier blend even though you can still sense the resinous mix of styrax, labdanum, copal and myrrh as it moves to what I’d call the fruity note (perhaps more fruit than fruit juice maybe). But there’s certainly a woody layer where the sandalwood and aloeswood live, and I’d imagine that’s where some of the dryness comes from, although I have to note that I’m not always getting these during the burn. The patchouli for example, can come out pretty strongly at times and even the agave is pretty noticeable. So overall it’s a really interesting and dynamic incense. I would imagine if you were shopping that you might not need both Ataraxia and Bacchus as they both hit similar sort of autumnal or harvest qualities, but either one of them is a good pick.

Celestial Opium is described as a “sweet mix of coffee, vanilla, cream, orange blossom, cedarwood, and patchouli.” With that description and thinking of previous opium themed incenses, it’s hard to tell if the name is supposed to be evoking poppies, perfumes or if it’s something of a metaphor, but I might put it closer to the perfume. The incense base reminds me a little of the Blue Ice Pine, and although the top note is obviously quite a bit different, I’m wondering if they share a base that’s taking up some of the aromatic range, or if it’s perhaps a lighter cedarwood oil that’s creating the similarity. Perhaps part of the fun of these incenses is being given the notes and trying to pick them out because there’s never one I don’t sense in there, although the coffee seems quite a background and not as forefront while I get the patchouli and orange blossom a lot more in front. Sometimes the pitfall of oils mixes like this is they can combine in a way that can negate the distinctions of the ingredients. The vanilla and the cream, for example, are there but often you have to really get close to the stick to sense them and both seem to weave in and out of the blend. There’s also an effect similar to incenses like Nippon Kodo’s Aqua which I usually attribute to cyclamen, it’s a sort of watery sort of floral, but as it’s not in the ingredients list it’s hard to estimate where this is coming from. All of these elements give this as a sort of composite feel which rarely resolves to a whole, but when it does it’s perhaps at its most impressive.

Jaz Mocha is an aged incense, apparently two years in a climate-controlled room, no less, and was started in September 2020. The ingredients include dark chocolate, honey jasmine sambac, sandalwood, guaicwood, oakmoss, tolu balsam and copal. Similarly with Cocoa Pods, the chocolate scent can take a bit to come out of an Epika Earth incense but when it does it’s really worth it. Aging also seems to do this incense favors, at the very least it really crystallizes most of the listed ingredients to where they can come out in the mix quite succinctly. This combination feels quite a bit different to the incenses I’ve reviewed so far and I think the presence of honey jasmine sambac and the balsam in particular move this off into a pretty original realm. It’s not a mocha scent in the most literal fashion, it’s more dressed up to smell even more delicious and possibly more like a tribute to both a setting and the drink (the floral quality in particular moves this out of the range of the name really). One thing I really noticed with this one is it smells different depending on where you are in the room and if you walk out and back in it can be incredibly arresting. Similarly to the Ataraxia and Bacchus, there’s some overlapping territory with Jaz Mocha and Cocoa Pods, but in this case the ingredients used in Jaz Mocha push the scent into different areas. The wood oils give it a sense of dryness and an almost solemn like regality to it that continuously reminds me of the southwest, even when the ingredients aren’t quite in that milieu. The sandalwood actually occasionally pops out at you which is wonderful. I might even recommend this as an example of essential oil blendings skills as it feels so carefully concocted.

Celebration of Life is a name used on both a stick and on a dhoop but I’m just going to tackle the dhoop version of this incense on this installment, after all it was these special sort of non-dipped blends that got my attention first (they are thematically similar, but have some differences). So Epika Earth originally forgot to put this in my original order. This happens sometimes and they fulfilled it immediately, and I wouldn’t mention it except that it was sent separately and the dhoops are so damp and fragile that they just didn’t really survive the trip in the sort of condition you can see in the Epika Earth picture even when padded up for protection (and they not only crumbled for this picture but once again over my own handling after this picture). So keep that in mind, it’s not the sort of thing that really bothers me when said dhoop is putting out enough smoke that burning a full length of one of these is probably a bit of an overkill unless you’re scenting a large space. So this is very much a situation like the Inspirecense last installment where it turns out that a small piece and heating is probably the preferable method, although I think the Celebration of Life burns a bit better/smoother when lit, so the difference is much smaller. The ingredients are explained as “We started with the finest sandalwood and agarwood; then we layer in high quality resins (frankincense, myrrh), resinoids (rock rose, styrax, etc), essential oils (Epika Sacred Sandalwood blend) and infuse with organic cinnamon, organic rose pedals and organic helichrysum flowers with gold copal woven in between.” Talk about winning you over with a description! This is yet another complex wonder full of woodiness and spiciness, with a real earthiness to the blend. It is a bit sweeter and richer on a heater – I got a ton of brown sugar and cinnamon on the heat which is the kind of mix that wins me over every time. It reminds me a little of a sweet and spicy oatmeal with some fruit mixed in. The dhoops are very soft and easily crumbled into the type of foil containers used with the Golden Lotus heater, so in the end the fragility doesn’t matter all too much, and I’d imagine burning one at its original length would be quite smoky. In the end this one’s merits outlive the caveats.

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Dhe-Tsang Monastery / Dhe-Tsang Golden Essence

February 8, 2024 at 7:20 am (Agarwood / Aloeswood / Eaglewood, Dhe-Tsang Monastery, Frankincense, Incense, Mike, Rhododendron, Spice (Cinnamon Clove Nutmeg etc.), Tibet Autonomous Region)

I consider Tibetan incenses that reach the $20 mark or go over to usually consist of ingredients that denote a more premium incense and certainly more so if the box is half the size of a usual roll as is the case with Dhe-Tsang Golden Essence. This, I believe, is the third imported incense from this monastery, after the flagship Dhe-Tsang Monastery Incense and the Dhe-Tsang Sacred Mountains Incense.

The Golden Essence comes in a very nice box, something that says premium from the get-go, especially with inner gold colored foil wrapper, which is quite a change from the containerless Sacred Mountains roll. The notes here are “frankincense, nutmeg, agarwood, rhododendron and other precious ingredients.” While the frankincense is not particularly obvious in the mix at first, it absolutely blends in to create a very different vibe from the usual incenses with nutmeg and agarwood. The base does smell like there may be some sandalwood in there mixed in with the agarwood, but on top of the wood the frankincense seems to intensify the herbal and spice mix – it comes off a bit tangy and a touch brassy. It wasn’t until my fourth stick that I actually started feeling like the agarwood in this was pretty good and actually contributing to the quality of the aroma rather than being a milder base wood. It is absolutely a vital part of the scent.

I do notice quite a middle to the incense although this may change with the temperature, it seems a bit more apparent when it’s warmer. On my current stick, I noticed that right before the heater came back on from the thermostat that I sort of lost this middle. Of course, there’s also a pretty big musk hit, a fairly ubiquitous note in most monastery incenses. Overall Golden Essence keeps you guessing in the way any finer Tibetan incense does. This was the first incense I attempted to review that had just come in (just about all the previous reviews were incenses I had sat with over months in 2023) and it took about a half dozen sticks before some of the gentle subtleties started to make themselves known. Some of this is just that this is a bit of a different formulation to other Tibetan sticks. You find frankincense in a lot of Tibetan incenses but it’s a much stronger note in this one than in the usual and it kind of pulls everything else together in different ways than I expected. But it’s also an incense with a high-quality wood presence, maybe working closer to the level of the Agarwood Heart of Shamballa. As always don’t expect a Japanese agarwood incense here, but this is about as close as Tibetans get to some low to mid ends. It’s likely an incense a connoisseur will want to check out.

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Epika Earth / Rare Terra / Bacchus, Blue Ice Pine, Cocoa Pods, Inspirecense, Maui Coconut and Sandalwood

January 27, 2024 at 11:17 am (Agarwood / Aloeswood / Eaglewood, Amyris, Balsam, Benzoin (Loban), Blueberry, Cedar, Chocolate, Coconut, Copal, Dragon's Blood, Epika Earth, Incense, Labdanum, Lavender, Mike, Myrrh, Pine / Pinon, Quassia, Sandalwood, Shatavari Root, Styrax Liquidambar, United States, Vanilla)

I spent some time early in the year searching through Etsy shops for new incense. I had the usual filters on, avoiding the usual things we don’t tend to review at ORS, the commercial level charcoals like Hem and Gonesh, many sticks dyed in color, most cones, and dipped incense. But it’s in the doing of this that sometimes you’re met with the conundrum that some of these styles occasionally break the rules in an interesting fashion. Epika Earth (Etsy shop) is one of those companies, an Akron, Ohio-based small business with an imprint that is quite original and unique, a company that seems to have invigorated a dipped, largely essential oil-based incense style. What I noticed first was that a lot of their visuals were arresting, second that their naming conventions were both familiar and a little different and third that occasionally in the catalog you’d turn up a completely different style of small batch incense such as dhoops. While I realized that many of their stick incenses must be dipped, it was the descriptions and ingredients that reeled me in, they were often mixes that sounded interesting and not just dialed in. So I made an order on Etsy for about seven items and then invited the company to send anything they’d like to see reviewed and they sent quite a few extra packages, most of which I was really glad they did as there were some really unique and wonderful blends in there that I might not have instinctively picked. Every incense was a new voyage, often I would have to reorient just to experience very new styles or combinations in incense that I have never tried before. So I’m going to break these down into roughly three different installments, mostly by what seem like the name of series, in the first installment’s case the Rare Terra series.

So the first two in this list were samples from the company. And the first of these, Bacchus, is actually a good indication of the direction some of the Epika Earth incenses go in. The essential oil mixes of these scents are not at all obvious and often smell like aged wines or other libations. The listed materials include styrax resinoid, labdanum resinoid, dragon’s blood, golden copal, and agarwood. So it’s probably not a surprise that this is an aroma roughly in the vicinity of some of Mermade’s heat-ables except in stick form, especially those with summer to fall themes. The mix is described as “Fruit Orchards at midnight in the fall with fresh fallen leaves and musk in the winds. Musky and sweet.” It feels like a vintage wine, a heady mix that really goes in a mythological, dreamy direction. This appears to largely be from the mix of laudanum, styrax and copal, all of which give it something of a liquid feel and, perhaps, a touch of alcohol. But on top the agarwood (dusting? oil?) provides something of a contrast to the Dionysian wine and a bit of balancing dryness. Any incense like this often comes with subnotes that are like the harvest or grapes or even raisins, all of which also overlap kyphi sorts of subscents. So it is indeed a heady and appropriately named brew and a fascinating, and a quality one at that. My only slight caveat is that many of the stick incenses appear to use a similar base, they have a similar aroma and often when you first light them you will only get this for 20-30 seconds before the actual aroma kicks in in force.

Really surprising was the Blue Ice Pine because in an American incense you expect this to be something heavy in piñon pine, like, say, Fred Soll’s incenses, but this one has a remarkably Japanese-like profile. It’s not a deep, resinous incense so much as it has a gentle and refined top end that has an almost langorous resolution to it. It actually reminds me more of like some more nebulous conifer incense than pine itself (both Nippon Kodo Mori-no-koh Conifer and Shoyeido Xiang-Do Forest come to mind for different reasons), but this might also be because there’s a secondary layer of spice that is even more subtle than the resins. This sort of mellow scent in the mix is probably why there are some tea comparisons as it’s similar to a spiced herbal tea in a way. It’s a really beautifully designed incense. I’m so used to dipped incenses often being loud and glaring that to try one with this sort of subtlety really changed my opinion on the possibilities here, and I can’t think of higher praise than that. And in the morning, it’s almost a perfect burn. The final three items were those I chose to order…

Cocoa Pods is also very impressive, in fact more so with every stick. On my first stick I didn’t automatically get chocolate, and I thought the creator was going for something a lot more distinctive, perhaps. However, on my second stick I moved it to my upstairs burning station where it really opened up including a rather refined and original chocolate subnote. Chocolate isn’t always accurate in incense, it’s usually approximated by other ingredients and can often feel a bit synthetic or off. Third stick, you really start to notice what a beautiful job is being done here. If your expectations for chocolate have been set low from other incenses, you probably would just be happy to get the aroma alone, but this is even better than that. If Bacchus was a wine, and Blue Ice Pine a tea, then Cocoa Pods is obviously a very decadent cup of hot chocolate if a bit of some expensive spirit was added. This is described as a lighter version of their Ridiculously Sinful incense, which I have not tried but now absolutely want to. However they have put this together it really feels high quality and unique and it was hard not to keep waving the entire stick over to experience ever millimeter of it. It’s an absolute must for a shopping trip.

Inspirecense was a bit of a challenge at first. It’s a dhoop incense and it sets a record in that it’s the first incense that has set off my smoke detector in at least ten years (two beeps though and that was it). So it’s obviously self-lighting and pours out enough smoke that I was thinking it might be better used outside. However, I could tell there was something really yummy going on with it, but it was also overwhelming to burn. But after putting out the dhoop and saving half of it, I put that second half on a Shoyeido heater on a low enough heat not to ignite and oh yeah that was right adjustment for sure, it turned from overwhelming to extraordinary. It’s got a pretty lengthy ingredient list: sandalwood, shatavari root, quassia wood, golden copal, benzoin, organic blueberries, atlas cedar, and organic lavender and lives up to the complexity that it implies. I’m not even sure how to describe it because the orchestra of ingredients plays quite an amazing symphony with different “instruments” playing at different moments in the mix. At first I was thinking confectionary, like a chocolate cake or wait maybe that’s more like a chocolate meets a fruity sort of mix. Then the fruity note really grabs your attention until you realize it’s a perfect blueberry note, utterly splendid in the mix (seriously, just jaw-droppingly yummy). Later it feels more like the sandalwood and other woods come out as the dhoop heats a little more. I’m not sure this incense was intended to be heated given it can be lit, but it is a magnificent bit of art heated and the dhoop also goes much longer, I’d imagine you could get at least six could heats out of a piece that last hours (I also crumbled it as it got hotter). This was one of the two incenses that really caught my eye in the catalog, I’m generally drawn to the unique and deeply artisan and the description was more than I could overcome. Maybe I have a fifth sense about these things, but if anyone is interested I’d jump on this one immediately – make it the centerpiece of an order! Or maybe the second! It is inspiring indeed.

Maui Coconut and Sandalwood is probably the one incense in this bunch similar to the dipped incenses I have tried in the past. Coconut is one of those scents that can be done pretty poorly, but fortunately Epika Earth have managed to make sure the scent isn’t too sweet or cloying. For a two-note incense it has an impressive list of ingredients: coconut, vanilla planifolia extract, santalum spicatum (sandalwood) oil, santalum austrocaledonicum (sandalwood) oil, cedrus deodora (himalayan cedarwood) oil, amyris balsamifera (amyris) oil, commiphora myrrha (myrrh) extract, myroxylon pereirae (balsam of Peru) oil, abies balsamea (fir balsam) extract, and caprylic/capric triglyceride (this also originates from coconut oil). The cedarwood oil is pretty noticeable in the sandalwood mix, but these types of oils seem like a fair mix in the modern age and while I wouldn’t expect Mysore level notes, it clearly does smell like reasonably sandalwood thankfully (both oils appear to be Australian sourced). So the question is really whether or not you’re going to enjoy the combination. For one thing the overall incense is surprisingly dry, it’s not the sort of coconut found in charcoals or even the sort of coconut creme pie scent of the Temple of Incense stick. The matching sandalwood is similarly dry, somewhat surprising given so much of the scents come from oils. Overall, it feels carefully crafted and put together, but as of the writing of this I haven’t quite decided if I enjoy the mix or not and that’s not all a criticism of the formula. Coconut is usually what I consider a “food incense” which tends to be more of a mood thing, but sandalwood sort of pushes that half way out if that makes sense. Definitely one of those your mileage may vary type of scent.

Coming up in February, the next installment…

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Yamzho Tibetan Incense Company / Putian Tibetan Incense

January 17, 2024 at 8:24 pm (Incense, Mike, Pine / Pinon, Rhododendron, Sandalwood, Terminalia, Tibet Autonomous Region, Yamzho Tibetan Incense Company)

(posting this a little bit earlier as I might not get to it tomorrow)

Putian Temple Incense is probably something of a cousin to the Golog Tibetan incense in style. While the list of ingredients “include Medicine Terminalia Fruit, sandalwood, pine and rhododendron,” I’m still getting something like nutmeg in the mix and possibly some agarwood at the base as well.

The way a lot of these ingredients come together on this is quite beautiful, it almost feels like a spiral up from the base into some rarified top note. It’s fresh and clear all the way and the sandalwood content doesn’t feel as much as buried as it is more prominent than usual. The pine isn’t obvious at first (maybe because it’s something more like red pine than pinon), but it definitely weaves its scent through the sandalwood. Usually agarwood is named in these recipes and even though it isn’t named here, if it were to be found in small quantities, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least. There is also a scent I find hard to describe except for something like fresh walnut shells, it’s probably a bit adjacent to the pistachio shell note I talk about in the same category Incense Traditions puts this one in, Therapuetic and Relaxation Incense. And speaking of this, that’s supposedly where the Terminalia fruit falls as it’s supposedly the “King of Medicine” in Tibet and something far more obscure in the West, as I would have no idea what it smells like aromatically. I also want to borrow a bit from my Golog review as well, because this has this sort of brown, nutmeg softness that reminds me of milder brown ales. It’s all rather nicely done, very Western friendly, no harsh or pungent notes. Just a relaxing, mildly spicy and prominently woody incense of careful creation.

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Pushkar Temple / 50g / Sandal Woods, Super Sandal, Natural Rose, Tuberose, Woods

January 15, 2024 at 11:30 am (Incense, India, Mike, Pushkar Temple Incense, Rose, Sandalwood, Tuberose)

Pushkar Temple / 100g 1 of 3
Pushkar Temple / 100g 2 of 3
Pushkar Temple / 100g 3 of 3
Pushkar Temple / 50g 1 of 6
Pushkar Temple / 50g 2 of 6

This is the third of six articles concentrating on the Pushkar Temple incenses packaged in 50g bundles. It includes two sandalwoods, two roses and a familiar incense called Woods.

As I previously mentioned in the 100g series under Mysore Chandan, Pushkar Temple doesn’t really have particularly strong amounts of quality sandalwood in their incenses, they are instead more inclined to have it as a note where the base is almost as strong, while moving in a different direction. And so even the simply named Sandal Woods isn’t very sandalwood heavy, but it’s also probably the least sweet of the incenses in the Pushkar Temple catalog that have sandal or Mysore in the name somewhere. The center of this is kind of dry, there’s some hint of woodiness, but I would doubt anyone trying this would immediately think sandalwood upon a burn, it’s just not that distinctive enough. It feels like there’s maybe been some attempt to bring out the sort of lemon like part of the sandalwood scent but it’s enough to overbalance it, rather than accentuate it. Mix it in with a bit of vanilla and a strange sort of dry balsamic quality and you more or less have where this is pitching towards. Overall if this was called something else or indicated it was a mixed masala it might make a bit more sense, but you really have to move to the Mysore Chandan or the below Super Sandal to start getting a bit more of a hint of any actual sandalwood, to my nose it’s barely even present here. Perhaps it’s harder to source with Rajasthan not being as close to Mysore?

Like with the Mysore Chandan, the Super Sandal has been sweetened up quite a bit, even if it might still have the strongest wood hit in the Pushkar Temple catalog. But ultimately this is to lower expectations a bit because they still do really nice things with sandalwoods. This isn’t terribly far off from the Chandan in the sense that it’s quite sweet but it doesn’t have that incense’s creaminess. Overall it’s really a dance between the top “sandalwood note” that really just kinds of hints at it like the top notes are missing and all the sweetness in the base which plays a little with that internal woody note. There’s even a touch of floral something in the mix that I don’t usually smell anywhere near a sandalwood, but it mixes the whole bouquet up a bit. It’s unquestionably a nice incense as long you realize the name of it is somewhat misleading in the sense that sandalwood is not really the primary note here when you count everything else. But it does have that buzz in the background that means half of this thing is pretty woody anyway. Certainly if you like variants, like the Mysore Chandan or Absolute Bliss incenses like King of Sandal or the ubiquitous Sandalwood Champa found here and there in other lines, then I can easily recommend trying this. I mean think of it this way, the day I looked this up you could get this for about $4 plus shipping, which probably tells you how much actual sandalwood is in it at the same time telling you it’s kind of a steal at that price point.

Natural Rose pitches back to a pink masala, the type I’ve mentioned in quite a few previous reviews as often being a stick that can go in floral, rose, candy-like, cherry and other directions. Here, Pushkar Temple is obviously going for a dead on rose, but this isn’t quite as on point as other incenses I’ve reviewed more recently that actually have a rose smell (say, like the Good Incense Rose), it’s more like a general type of floral that leans more in that air freshener sort of direction, where it starts to feel like it’s on the synthetic side a bit too much. It sort of proves the point why a lot of other incenses in the style prefer different notes to it that are friendlier than this one, the secondary scents are more like alcohol or something chemical. It’s not even close to the worst rose incense I’ve had though and for the types of notes it’s going for it’s not entirely uncomfortable but the issue is there’s so many sticks in this sort of style that are just a lot more pleasant that it’s hard to recommend this one. Once again, just like with sandalwood, you have to consider the price point and that real rose is very difficult to ape without expense.

Tuberose is a lot more interesting, it’s an incense type I’ve seen a couple times through the years but it isn’t particularly common (Primo has one that was central to their line, but it wasn’t very good if I remember correctly). In fact if you do a quick search on tuberose you’ll find it doesn’t even look like a rose and is actually part of a completely different family; however, it has been used in perfumery for 100s of years. Now I probably live in a climate where tuberose shows up, but I don’t remember specifically experiencing a whiff, but this incense did sort of put out some nostalgic feelers for me a little bit, and it has such a nicely unique scent to it. If it’s said that too much tuberose can overwhelm, then Pushkar Temple’s is a nice match of some sort of perfume with a friendly, somewhat dry base. At times I think the perfume comes off of it quite clear and it seems really measured in intensity. It’s not really rose-like in the regular sense, but it is a friendly and unique floral in this line, and every time I burn a stick I really enjoy it. I suspect it’s the kind of thing you will have to get your own take on, but I suspect if you’re pretty experienced with incense and don’t have a tuberose, then this will fit nicely as a bit of breadth in your collection. I like the drier base and the whole thing doesn’t seem super drenched in florals like the Natural Rose seemed to be. And once it really seems to build up in an area it becomes quite notable what balance it has. But please note that I brought this incense up right before I reviewed the Dimension 5 floral with tuberose, this is of course not at all on that sort of connoisseur level and doesn’t have much in the way of resolution.

Woods is a very familiar incense, it’s somewhat reminiscent of the Little Woods Shroff does (in fact I just sampled a recent box from Exotic Incense) and I’ve seen other similar incenses pop up here and there that are close. It’s something of a traditional recipe, but I would imagine newer versions probably need perfumes to make it work. I think you have to look at this like “the Woods” for it to make sense as it has never been something like a mix of sandalwood and what not, it always struck me more as being something with more forest-like characteristics, usually something of a lot of evergreen and resin. Noone’s ever done it better than the original Shroff version, even Shroff itself has let the formula go a little bit, perhaps some ingredients for it have just gotten too expensive. But what they all have at heart is a sort of prettied up mix of resins, amber and wood oils. This is a nice version of it in the same direction, sure it’s a bit perfumed and the ratio of ingredients is a little different, but it still roughly hits the target. There have always felt like a lot of ingredients in this mix, perhaps too many to quantify or separate but the combination is quite distinctive in its effect. Definitely a worthy version if you haven’t tried it before.

The final three groups will basically be all miscellaneous incenses, mostly names that aren’t particularly revealing of what’s in the incense, although there are a few that are, most or all of which will be in the next installment. Stay tuned!

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Pushkar Temple / 50g / Agar Woods, Oud Woods, Ruhe Heena, Ruhe Oud

January 6, 2024 at 11:49 am (Agarwood / Aloeswood / Eaglewood, Hina (Heena), Incense, India, Mike, Oud, Pushkar Temple Incense)

Pushkar Temple / 100g 1 of 3
Pushkar Temple / 100g 2 of 3
Pushkar Temple / 100g 3 of 3
Pushkar Temple / 50g 1 of 6

So now moving over from a number of loud and brash floras it’s not a bad idea to compare and contrast with a very different sort of quartet. Three of these fit at least somewhat close to the agarwood and oud incenses you’ve tried from all sorts of companies while I’ve borrowed one of the other two “Ruhe” incenses for no other reason than numbering…

Pushkar Temple agarwood/oud incenses are certainly nice incenses but they follow the same rules as any other Indian masalas in that agarwood or precious oudhs are not actually used (or if they are, they are spread very, very thin). This confidence is just based on increasing costs of these aromatics, you’d be looking more at something like Dimension 5 if you want the real thing in a stick. So here we’re going for something like verisimilitude or perhaps tribute might be the right word. Pushkar Temple also use completely different formulas to say Madhavahas or Happy Hari, so these are going to be both familiar and a bit different as well.

One of the things I notice about an incense like Agar Woods is how it almost feels like it’s built from its notes up, with the whole leather, cologne, spice and wood mix coming together to approximate a take on agarwood. If it doesn’t hit the nail on the head, it is close and it certainly lands somewhere yummy. It’s a bit perfumed, which is something more obvious from the fresh stick, but perhaps somewhat surprisingly there is some feel of the actual wood in there and I’m not quite sure how they’re doing it (likely either cheap agarwood or something else, but modified). There’s definitely that sort of turpentine/lacquer kind of mix that’s almost necessary for the scent, but there’s also a lot of caramel and confectionary spice, even a touch of something like banana bread in there. Nothing gets too sweet because there is some sort of base woodiness at work, not to mention a healthy amount of spice. Overall, this is like a lot of Indian agarwood sticks in that it seems quite cologne forward, but they’ve done a really good job at getting something more like an oud to move laterally over into woods territory just a little. So, if you’re fatiguing on something like the Pure Incense agarwoods or, god forbid, the Happy Hari Oud Masala, this should be quite the antidote as it does something similar without being anywhere close to identical, which is exactly what you would hope for.

Oud Woods, a more recent import, might have been better christened as something like Oud Flora, as the oud scent is much fainter than it is in the other oud/agarwood incenses in this review, in fact it would be arguable if it actually was a note here. The base is certainly more flora-like and very sweet, it’s a sort of sugar and spice kind of thing that might strike users as pretty familiar in other Indian incenses. If this had been introduced to me under a name without oud in it, I actually doubt I’d be here talking about any oud notes, you really have to stretch to detect anything like that and even in doing that, I doubt I’d mention them in a blind taste test. As an incense on its own without any expectations, there do feel like there’s some level of caramel or confectionary in the mix although they are sharing time with a more powdery, crystalline sweet sort of base, so a lot of this all gets tangled up in a mix that defies distinction. What worries me a little is that a mix like this with this level of sweetness can get a bit sickly and while I wouldn’t expect this same reaction from everyone in the ORS audience, I’d just mention that this is somewhere on the line for me, but for the most point avoids it. However, it’s not quite the kind of stick I’d burn a second in a row without going for something completely different to mix it up either. It may very well be that whatever oud note attempted here just got diluted too much for the final batch, as I still occasionally get distracted by notes in that vicinity, as if they’re almost there. It’s a nice incense for sure, I just feel like it falls just short of a great one and wonder if a batch that strengthened these notes might actually be a success.

So there are three incenses in the Pushkar Temple catalog that start with “Ruhe,” a quick search on the internet didn’t seem to bring up anything definitive as to what it means. Needless to say there’s a Heena, an Oud (both in this review) and a Patchouli (coming later). I’ve yet to come up with anything definitive in how the three are tied together. Needless to say I love me a good heena (hina) and Pushkar Temple’s Ruhe Heena is a rather pitch perfect example of what one should be like. This sort of minty-green tree leaf is such a specific scent that I’ve generally fallen for it and also love when it shows up in amber and/or musk combinations, anything that combines with it broadens the aromatic experience. The Ruhe Heena gets the dark green color of the masala dead on and a nice deep minty-green heena note. The bouquet may have been sweetened up a little to be more friendly, but nothing really detracts or muddles the main scent. I’ll only mention that in my incense-experiencing years, the kinds of things I’d run across as supposedly including hina and heena used to be more in the domain of charcoals and absolutely none of them smelled like this, so it wasn’t until much later that I came across some authentic variants. It’s a distinctive note and while it might not be to your taste at least you can confirm through this if it is. The green/mint (there’s also maybe something like a touch of limepeel) overlap just ensures that it is not quite definitively either. Be sure to check it out if you’re not familiar with the tree, it will open up another incense area for you.

Of all the incenses here, Ruhe Oud may have the strongest agarwood note of them all. It’s a very interesting note as it shares time with honey, caramel, raisins and wine, and this difference makes it as individually distinctive as all of these incenses are. Amazingly this actually does get a sort of wood/resin-heated scent to it, its charry/burnt scent melds nicely next to those previously mentioned notes. Mind you I don’t think this is coming from any actual agarwood per se but I do appreciate the attempt to have it approximated in some way as it’s a very rare thing in Indian incenses. The whole thing has something of a falling leaf/autumnal vibe about it. Again, I think the success of an Indian agarwood or oud incense in this era is just doing something exquisitively imitative (with the above mentioned Oud (Masala) being sort of the alpha in the bunch). Maybe my only issue with it is it still feels like it has a dialed down base that you could compare easily to Oud Woods, fortunately it does not overwhelm anything going on here, but I generally feel that you still get it in the radius of the burn cloud a bit. It’s not a bad base, just maybe something not exactly complementary to its mission. But the top notes are really too well done to have this be much of a complaint and I still would recommend this to those who might want a different Indian oud experience.

So as to reiterate you can generally see after this second installment of Pushkar Temple incenses that the hit rate leaps up really fast, the worst of the lot are still really decent incenses, and the best of them are absolutely something I would recommend. You will be happy to know this is a trend that largely continues as we move to the next installment and a group of sandalwoods and roses. Stay tuned!

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