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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Tsogyal Latso Nunnery Incense

March 30, 2024 at 4:19 pm (Agarwood / Aloeswood / Eaglewood, Cardamom, Conic Gymnadenia Rhizome, Mike, Saffron, Sandalwood, Spice (Cinnamon Clove Nutmeg etc.), Tibet Autonomous Region, Tsogyal Latso Nunnery)

[It’s back in stock!]

Here’s another new nunnery incense I loved off the bat, and one that is quite a bit different than all of the red sticks usually created by nuns in Tibet. The ingredients here include white and purple sandalwood, saffron, black agarwood, nutmeg, clove, cardamom, rhizome of conic gymnadenia, and fructus amomi (another type of cardamom). It’s a very woody incense primarily but does not lack for a middle.

Probably most noticeable is the big spice mix in the center of it. Where the wood could over-dominate, this mix really helps push things to the center and keep any campfire like elements from overwhelming things. It’s actually a fairly complex mix, but the nutmeg is probably the most in front of this mix, everything else feels largely right behind it. The incense sort of hints but falls short of being sweet, which makes all the spices shift a bit more in the direction of the cardamom(s). There’s a bit of thickness in the middle that’s a little hard to explain the origin of (it may just be the high quality of ingredients), but it keeps things quite rich. The presence of “black agarwood” sort of implies a higher grade of the wood, but I don’t detect anything abnormal to the way agarwood usually shows up in a Tibetan blend, it’s fairly mellow here as well. I’d suspect there must be some other woods in the mix as the ones listed don’t usually lead to what I’d call the more evergreen qualities that something like juniper, cypress or even cedar might impart. But probably what is most subtle about this is there feels like a light floral sort of mix at the very top, it’s not something I notice every time I burn it, but it’s a note that really ties everything together. Overall, the Tsogyal Latso Nunnery Incense is a very balanced incense, it’s a bit tangy and a bit salty but it’s primarily woody and spicy in equal measures. I don’t think I’ve tried too many nunnery incenses that weren’t excellent, and while this one is different from many of them and possibly closer to healing/therapeutic incenses, it’s still pretty wonderful in its own right.

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Cirenjiang Nunnery Temple Incense

March 18, 2024 at 7:01 am (Agarwood / Aloeswood / Eaglewood, Cirenjiang Nunnery, Cypress, Incense, Mike, Red Sandalwood, Saffron, Sandalwood, Tibet Autonomous Region)

One of the relatively new and fine acquisitions at incense-traditions.ca, Cirenjiang Nunnery Temple Incense is yet another special Tibetan that should keep fans of these types of incenses very happy. The ingredients include cypress, red and white sandalwood, saffron, and agarwood, all of which are quite present in the scent. This isn’t one of those sort of deep red amber-like nunnery incenses, but it does seem slightly reminiscent of those nonetheless in something of a lighter fashion. There’s also something unnamed and floral that swirls through the mix that is quite striking and a bit sweeter than I imagine most of the listed ingredients are.

What I like about this one is it’s a good example of being both light and complex. and it really surpasses its list of ingredients in the kind of notes that spiral out from it, it feels like something really clever is going on in the mix. On top the evergreens mix to form an olfactory lattice like the tops of a coniferous forest. That sort of spicy-amber mix commonly found in nunnery incenses acts as something of a middle; you can recognize it, but the incense feels heavy enough in woods that it isn’t as dominant as it is in, say, the Gang-Zi Mani or the Sangdanli Nunnery Temple incenses. But since those are both classics, dialing those great notes back has to be balanced out in some way and that’s where the mix of sweet cypress and evergreen notes with all these unique floral touches (possibly related to the way saffron can mix with other things) works so well to turn this into something quite unique. And I have to say both this and the two I compared it to are incenses that probably smacked me on the 4th or 5th stick, I remember feeling very different about this before I gave it a few weeks of rest, when I came back to it I was truly amazed. One for the shopping list indeed and a tremendous find.

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Kathok Monastery / Holy Mountain, Mipham Gyatso Formula

March 12, 2024 at 4:00 pm (Agarwood / Aloeswood / Eaglewood, Benzoin (Loban), By Company, Camphor, Borneol, Cardamom, Incense, Kathok Monastery, Mike, Saffron, Sandalwood, Spice (Cinnamon Clove Nutmeg etc.))

Nice to see a couple more incenses from a monastery that makes very distinctive and unique incenses. Previously ORS had covered both their regular Formula Incense and one called King of Incense, I was personally more inclined to the latter than the former, but with the new formulations, I will likely be running back to reevaluate. These two newer imports are certainly at least on par with those, if not quite a bit better, but I think what really strikes me is just how different their styles are. Kathok Monastery apparently doesn’t really do grades of similar styles, but instead throws four points on a graph that show some really intriguing differences.

For the Kathok Holy Mountain, noting the price and elegant container, I think one must consider it the Kathok Monastery line’s high end. It is a really, really deep premium incense with a combination of elements that deliver a top note that you can barely describe, it’s something so distinctive and ultimately conglomerate that you’re not likely to have experienced it elsewhere. While there are no ingredients listed, you can sense a pretty decent level of wood quality here and what feels like an intertwined saffron and musk mix that penetrates very deeply. There’s a lot of spice here but not quite in front, although at times the overall incense brings out cinnamon and clove notes a little stronger. Perhaps most prominently is this front scent feels solidly in the cedar/mesquite area, it’s something that is almost fundamental to the way this works as a whole, in fact I would be sure you’re comfortable with a bit of (tangy) barbeque in the mix. If I’m not mistaken this note also works a little interactively with some aloeswood on a tertiary level at times – it’s quite subtle when it does. Even more intriguing is once the incense penetrates the area for a good 15-20 minutes, I start to notice all sorts of shimmery side notes. After the fourth stick I moved it upstairs and was quite surprised how the scent altered to the area. I felt that maybe the cedar/mesquite note may have had more room to dissipate and the whole thing felt like it had much more balance. It is most certainly deluxe and more expensive than the usual Tibetan stick, but there’s so much going on in this incense and so many facets that I still feel like I’m working on it and, especially, still getting my head around the cedar-mesquite sort of front. If this kind of long education gets your interest then you absolutely want to check this out, there’s nothing quite like it. The more I burn it, the more I love it.

The Mipham Gyatso Formula is completely different, just opening up the box you can see the sort of thin, red colored stick that one might find as Holy Land or Nectar. This one does have an ingredient list, including “white and purple sandalwood, clove, saffron, borneol, agarwood, benzoin, [and] Wurfbainia vera.” According to Wikipedia, this last ingredient was the first plant species named by a woman (Elizabeth Blackwell) and appears to be a type of cardamom. So undoubtedly a nice list of goodies here. The musk is really powerful on this one, huge even on the fresh stick (just slide the sticks out from the package to get this). Although not listed there seems to be a really neat floral thread throughout that you might find in Holy Land (I believe this is close to what IT is calling slightly sweet tones), but somewhat different in composition as well. I think all of the ingredients listed are quite clear, the musk sort of forms a backdrop for that mix of clove and saffron. The borneol is particularly strong here which I really love and may also be partly responsible for the sweetness. So the way all these different elements mix together is nearly perfect for my particular tastes, it almost feels like a mild stick with a loud effect if that makes some sort of paradoxical sense. And where Holy Mountain is up in a more premium price range and has a massive learning curve, this is quite accessible and about $11 a box which I think is a very, very good deal for the type of scent this is. I can imagine this will show up on some future top 10 lists, it’s really that good, it’s a little like a more floral take on the Nectar.

So we’re up to four Kathok monastery incenses and all of them really couldn’t be far enough away from each other in scent and none of them have instantly identifiable aromas. The composition of every single one really highlights the creativity at work here and how some of these old recipes can really grab at the imagination. Both of these, I think, are worth your time and attention.

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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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Gongkar Chö Monastery / Gonggar Fragrant Incense

February 2, 2024 at 10:13 am (Gongkar Chö Monastery, Mike, Musk, Red Sandalwood, Saffron, Sandalwood)

It’s interesting after a string of really mild and friendly Tibetan incenses to come back to one that is as (relatively) swanky as the Gonggar Fragrant Incense (Incense Traditions usually uses the word pungent, but not here). Now this is relatively mildly swanky or pungent compared to, say, a couple of the Dzongsar incenses but it does have a touch of wormwood (or perhaps herbal mix) that sits right in the middle of the aroma (the note I speak of reminds me of something like an oven baking something with a slightly dangerous mix of cheese and herbs). I do think in this case it enhances the entire incense with just a touch, as this is a really cool aromatic experience that includes “white and red sandalwood, musk and saffron” but clearly a lot of other things as well.

It’s a huge aroma but the first thing I notice after the swank is the heavy spicy note. It’s sort of like I came from reviewing an incense with clove and nutmeg listed but only really a mild touch of that note, while they’re not listed here and come screaming up from the incense like a banshee. In fact nearly everything in the incense is really face forward, you’re getting both the spice and the herbal all at once. The musk seems to take a back seat to a lot of this external activity, but it does feel like it interweaves a little lower in the mix. The saffron sits more up front with the herbs. Really, the more you burn this the more you notice a lot of things going on, its central aroma is quite polished up even with the wildness in the mix. But this is what I really love about great Tibetan aromas, they can throw dozens of ingredients into the mix and still manage to impress you with a great range of interlocking ingredients. As long as you’re OK with a touch of center funk, I think you might find out it actually opens up into a very enjoyable aroma. Could even be one of those that clicks with me later and I ended up burning through a couple of boxes.

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Yachen Gar / Yachen Gar Precious Incense

January 21, 2024 at 12:16 pm (Cedar, Incense, Mike, Red Sandalwood, Saffron, Sandalwood, Spice (Cinnamon Clove Nutmeg etc.), Tibet Autonomous Region, Yachen Gar)

According to Incense Traditions, the yellow/orange tubed Yachen Gar Precious Incense is an incense made by nuns in Yachen Gar monastery. It includes more than 30 ingredients, including “cedar, red and white sandalwoods, saffron, clove, nutmeg and other herbs.” The cedar and sandalwoods are probably the most dominant ingredients in this mix, giving the incenses a much lighter base than usually found in nunnery incenses. but it’s a base that really allows the other ingredients to flourish.

The cedar is particularly strong, it’s a tree ingredient often found in Tibetan incense, but perhaps it’s not pushed all the way to the front of the base like this one. It is likely red cedar and so one must imagine this as a strong note in the usual Himalayan symphony of woods (this probably contains smaller quantities of say juniper or cypress). The mix, as a result, evokes the sorts of wood mixes more common in the American southwest, as if there was a slight touch of mesquite in the background; however, incenses with those ingredients are unlikely to have the big sandalwood hit that this one has, so while it’s somewhat evocative of the southwest, it’s still solidly in its natural Himalayan territory. The nuns who created this really polished everything up as while the incenses is very woody, it’s still rather light, which of course allows the spice of it to pop from the base. I wouldn’t say the spice is particularly heavy, it feels more like it’s there to bring out the notes of the woods. The saffron almost feels like it’s hiding around a corner, just there enough that you can detect it, but not strong enough to be a note in its own right. The final polish to it does feel like some of the notes have been strengthened a bit more so than found in nature, so I suspect there is some clever oil or resin usage here to do that. Overall, this is nicely done, a sort of gentle and refined “woods first” blend that certainly has a unique personality of its own.

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Golog Tibetan Incense

December 30, 2023 at 11:24 am (Agarwood / Aloeswood / Eaglewood, Cardamom, Incense, Mike, Red Sandalwood, Saffron, Sandalwood, Spice (Cinnamon Clove Nutmeg etc.), Tibet Autonomous Region)

Golog Tibetan Incense is “a mild, smooth vegetarian incense with intriguing subtleties. [it c]ontains Red and White Sandalwoods, Agarwood, Saussure involucrata, Rhodiola Rosea, Rhizome of Conic Gymnadenia [several of these last three look to be part of Tibetan traditional medicine or healing], Nutmeg, Saffron, Clove, Cardamon, Fructus Amomi [cardamom] and other precious ingredients.” This is obviously a huge list and it can be difficult in such a big list to even determine how some of these traditional ingredients fit together, but if you just follow the ones you know you’ll still have some idea of what area of Tibetan incense this roughly falls in. The incense comes in a nice sturdy cardboard tube, but one thing you notice after the handsome presentation and ingredient list is just what a mild incense this is at heart.

Falling under IT’s traditional therapeutic and relaxation category, it’s not hard to zero in on the agarwood and sandalwood in the mix as both woods are usually the basis of the general aroma in this sort of class. It means that there aren’t quite as many high altitude type trees and resins that usually invigorate or push the incense in a greener direction. However, it’s still quite cooling even with all the spices. You can easily get every one of these, the nutmeg and cardamom are definitely quite prominent on top, a pleasure if you like both of these like I do. I’m not sure any of these ingredients quite support what is a nice breadth to the incense, I would imagine the central, almost liquid-like note is a conglomerate of a whole number of things lost behind the secret recipe. But it’s definitely the kind of individual note that will go a long way with further experience, and it’s still something I haven’t fully settled on even half a dozen sticks. I think maybe the biggest factor I notice is this seems to be quite refined for a therapuetic incense, which may also be part of why this is in a higher price range than much of its class. I do find myself edging up just a little with each new experience, there’s something about its nutmeg content that kind of reminds me a little of brown ales, which is weirdly a metaphor I might be able to stick with for the overall incense.

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Good Incense / Gold, Patchouli, Rose, Saffron, Vetiver + notes on other fragrances

December 9, 2023 at 4:17 pm (Good Incense, Halmaddi / Mattipal, Incense, India, Mike, Patchouli, Rose, Saffron, Vetivert / Khus)

I hadn’t put it together right away in my head, but Good Incense is something of a sister imprint to Bhagwan Incense. It seems from looking at the site that Good Incenses are more affordably priced by comparison to Bhagwan, they don’t come in the fancy boxes and are just simply presented in wrappers. But there are honestly a lot of nice incenses in this line as well, including a trend of similarly constructed incenses that present a different tradition to what I have experienced in other Indian exports. It’s a line that intrigues me quite a bit, definitely quality but not having the hallmarks of incenses more commonly seen in the west; it’s the kind of trend you hope for.

The first of these we’ll discuss is the Gold. The only clues we have are halmaddi and sweet floral notes but this is an incense that has an intriguing almost root-like nip at the top of the bouquet. It’s similar to ways I have seen patchouli or vetivert used in some incenses and it’s a note I’ve always liked a lot personally, it’s kind of green-banana in a way. There is also some level of an herb like tobacco in the mix. This is of course all grounded in a very friendly charcoal-masala mix with a lot of breadth in the middle. You can smell the halmaddi for sure, but the stated florals are too much of a mix to really identify anything specific from, but they certainly play an important component in that breadth. So overall this is a very unique incense, it’s the kind of thing you want to share with friends just to get their take on it as it’s sort of like a friendly incense modified in a slightly unique direction. I continue to remain really fascinated with it, it really keeps you on your toes.

The Good Incense Patchouli looks to be fairly close to a dusted charcoal as a style. It would not surprise me at all if this was Madhavadas sourced as there’s a lot of vanilla and sandalwood coming off the burn. Vanilla often seems fairly comfortable next to patchouli for some reason, it’s not a match I’d make on my own, but it often works as it does here. In my recent Asayu review I talked about patchouli variations to hopefully give some idea where I sit with the scent as a whole. The more premium, essential oil heavy sticks with it tend to fatigue me (probably because living in California I used to come across people wearing the oil as an aromatic), so this match-up of a more leaf-oriented scent and the vanilla/sandalwood base fronting an oil that’s a bit greener than your average essential oil is probably a bit closer to my personal preferences. That is, the greener a patchouli is the better. So not only does this hit that spot but it’s also variant from other Indian sticks that are roughly in the same region. The herb will always fall somewhere in the middle for me, I like a good one but I’ll likely come more across it in reviews than looking for it myself if that makes sense.

I’ve probably walked out my story about walking through Sacramento’s Capitol Rose Garden a dozen times by now, and I do because it sets a sort of basis for how I perceive rose. And I don’t mean something like a deep Bulgarian rose absolute or something more expensive and premium, I just mean that it’s a measure for getting what a bunch of roses smell like walking between them. I bring this up because the Good Incense Rose is shockingly good at getting this smell dead on. You’re not even just getting a general rose-direction floral scent here, it actually does smell a lot like actual roses, which is no mean feat given the costs it would take to make this actually happen. Sure it’s a little sweet and there does indeed seem to be some halmaddi here, but all this does is just give a bit of comfort and backing to the floral scent. Compared to all of the pink stick mixes across various companies, this actually comes across as being slightly more authentic and true to the actual scent. 15g at 3 euros for this is a deep bargain, I can’t even think of a deal anywhere close to this for this particular scent. I might add that this strikes me as being the same lineage as the Balsamic Amber and Gold so it’s equally as intriguing in that sense.

And to add to that lineage is a very nice Saffron Masala. This has what I might call the most on point saffron scent in an incense that one can imagine, bereft of the kind of additions you usually find with it. The caveat as always is an ingredient as rare as this doesn’t really have essential oils you can fuel an incense with but creators of it usually have something that smells like the herb that still works really nicely. In many ways it’s just the clarity of this that’s so attractive, while there’s a charcoal-halmaddi-masala base that helps to broaden the incense’s aroma (this base works really well in all of this lineage’s sticks), it doesn’t detract from this nice spicy top mix. I often find myself searching for the saffron note in an incense, it’s nice to find a masala that makes it really obvious, not to mention quite simple on top. If you like saffron this is a no-brainer. It actually gives me a little nostalgia of how saffron smelled in the incenses of the 90s.

Vetiver (vetivert) feels like a different lineage altogether and is a very interesting dry masala with a few different notes. I wouldn’t even think of vetivert being a holiday sort of scent but the way this brings out mint and foresty notes constantly reminds me of that sort of thing, neither are notes I tend to associate with most vetivert incenses but they sometimes even pop from the fresh stick. And so even though this stick has more familiar sorts of vetivert notes, it has a much broader palette which tends to send the nose out searching along the burn. Vetivert usually seems to have deeper rooty or earthy sort notes which I mentally file closer to patchouli and for sure this sort of dry masala has some similarities to patchouli dry masalas as well. But vetivert can also tend to grassy and more citrus like notes and so the more earthy part of the scent seems more like its bunched up in the middle, while these other notes play off the base in strange and unique ways. The description includes halmaddi, but in this case its presence is probably pretty minor. Overall I do think this is a cool experience for sure. I wouldn’t have considered a more earthy, rooty scent to base something almost brighter and more high altitude but it’s part of what makes this an interesting incense. It’s likely to stretch one’s own interpretation of what vetivert can do.

Some of the other Good Incenses I tried didn’t fare as well. In all of my incense exploring life I’ve never understood why Red Sandalwood is prized as an aromatic; however, putting it in a stick on its own isn’t likely to move all but the most eccentric of us. This one just smells like dull campfire wood to me, but to be fair I’ve never tried a Red Sandalwood that made me feel otherwise. The Golden Sandal is simply neither, it doesn’t even do wood and furniture polish particularly well. Mystifyingly the sandalwood in the Sandalwood Saffron can be smelled just a smidge on the fresh stick too, but overall feels a bit of a chemical mess in the burn and ultimately neither. Both of these I’d take to task with original exporter, unfortunately in the West this is the kind of thing the importer has to either absorb as costs or hope to thin stock in the catalog, maybe something a lot of readers are not particularly aware of. One feels that Benzoin Supreme may be of similar provenance to these in that it has a similar chemical or perfume finish, but at least the scent lands somewhere in the ballpark as if the resin end was refined to some end – it’s not even that bad once it gets a cloud about it, although you never do lose the chemical note in the background behind it.

I had better hopes for Sambrani. It is described as “[a] delightful herbal, menthol, mineral, floral, and vanilla scent.” I don’t have any problem with that other than the first adjective, as the extreme bitterness of the burn pretty much overwhelms everything about this mix to an eye-watering distraction. Menthol’s a tough call in incense and here a lot of its better attributes are left to an edge around the shocking remains of the rest of it. You almost have to recover after burning even a little of it. As a contrast, Summer Bouquet is just a sort of fruity floral mix and definitely not a bad incense at all, in fact I started liking it a bit more on later burns. Its supposedly made from Mt Arunachala flowers and seems to have that more natural yet maybe slightly-not-perfect burn of actual floral material rather than a lot of perfumes. It kind of hovers a bit around a harvest-like plum or grapes sort of scent. Like a lot of florals that verge fruity it’s probably not terribly memorable, but I would imagine some liking this for sure.

Both Bhagwan Incense and Good Incense have a lot I haven’t covered so do look around the catalogs a bit, the incenses come from a number of different Indian companies, and so many of these can be surprises. I understand from Eugene that this stock is just the beginning!

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