Incense in Germany

A start. Just a placeholder at the moment.  

There is a long tradition of incense making in Germany, with the miners in Erzgebirge making incense cones to anoint themselves with frankincense smoke for luck before going to work. And now incense cones are a big Christmas tradition in Germany!

Incense makers

Craft maker in Heppenheim

 
Georg Huber (Jeomra) runs an online incense shop, Raeucherwelt.de ("Incense World"), in Heppenheim, Germany, specialising in pure frankincense, and since 2022 has been making incense in Germany with an incense machine he ordered from India. I'm excited at what he is doing, and while the results, for me, are at times a little too focused on the materials rather than the fragrance - at their best, such as with Natur Pur Weihrauch Rose, they are awesome. 

I find what Huber is doing fascinating, along the same lines as what Benyamin Shoham is doing with Seraphim Incense in Israel, and particularly what Pure Yemen are doing in Yemen  - creating modern incense sticks using pure ingredients in countries which do not yet have a tradition or culture of incense sticks. This is exciting, bold, ground-breaking incense making, and they deserve respect and support.

Reviews: 4
High score: 50
Low score: 27
Average: 35/50

SamsaSpoon
Homemade Incense

Reviews: 5
Top score: 50

Bottom score: 26
Average: 36

***

 

Carl Jager are a fourth generation German incense maker, founded in 1897.  

Reviews: 3
High score: 35
Low score: 27
Average: 32/50

***

* Knox  German firm founded around 1865 during the interest in Germany during the 19th century for burning incense cones as a disinfectant or medicine. The leading incense maker in Europe. Their cones are small, cheap, wood powder with synthetic perfume. Short lived, poor quality, and even poorer value for money. 8 scents reviewed, average score: 20
  

***

* Crottendorfer. A German incense-cone manufacturer based in Crottendorf since 1936. 10 reviews - average score 24. 

***

* Huss Incense. German cone maker. Re-founded in 1990. 5 reviews - average score 32. 

Incense shops

* Padma Store, Germany. Sells selected Indian, Tibetan, and Japanese incense. International shipping.   

* Raeucherwelt (Jeomra's Incense World), Germany. Sells resin, a small selection of incense sticks from India, Japan, and Tibet, and excellent home-made incense by Jeomra. International shipping. 

* Ephra-World, Germany. Excellent shop. Wide range of incenses, resins, sticks, powder, smudges, etc. The main focus is India, but they have incense from around the world, and some rare, and exotic stuff, at good prices, and mainly genuine brands rather than re-brands.  

Incense around the world

SamsaSpoon Homemade Incense

SamsaSpoon (Irene of the Germany based incense blog Rauchfahne) is part of a large group of people around the world who make their own incense using pure ingredients. Such incense is an important part of the history, tradition, and culture of incense, and would have been going on for thousands of years. While such incense may be informally swapped and shared, it is not often available for purchase. Irene shared some of her incense with me as a friend, and on request has sold some (to India I believe), but she doesn't make the incense as a commercial activity. I have reviewed her incense as an example of what homemade or small craft incense is like in order to expand on my own knowledge and experience of the world of incense. 

I have experienced a few other small craft incense makers. Usually loose blends. I find this area of incense making fascinating. Often the focus is more on the ingredients than on the final fragrance accord, so the results may not be in line with the output of a commercial incense house, especially as most home/craft makers are experimenting with ingredients and recipes to discover themselves what works and what doesn't. But they don't have the time, the budget, and often the inclination to repeatedly fine tune a recipe until the fragrance accord is perfected. 

So I was really impressed when I found that much of her output is not just pleasantly fragrant, but actually quite awesome. 

Reviews 

SamsaSpoon
Homemade Swiss Stone Pine (D)
Oct 2023 - Score: 50↑ 

SamsaSpoon
Homemade Indian Frankincense & Cardamom (D)
April 2023 - Score: 42

  

SamsaSpoon
Homemade Burgundy Pitch 
Feb 2025 - Score: 31

 

SamsaSpoon

Homemade Nerikoh Night Leaves 

Feb 2025 - Score: 30

  

SamsaSpoon
Homemade "Dragon"
Feb 2025 - Score: 26 

  

Reviews: 5
Top score: 50

Bottom score: 26
Average: 36

***

 

Incense in Germany

Loose or home-made incense

HEM Green Tea Incense Cones

Scent of paint, fruit, bubblegum, and smoke. Kinda smoky. Difficult to pin the scent down - it's familiar, yet shifts away. The cold throw scent on the cone is sharper, fresher, sweeter, and has a fruit element. The scent on the burn is smoky and vague, though has some sense of hot, brown tea. I'm not getting Green Tea. Meh. It is what it is, but I'd like it to be a bit more fun. 

HEM incense is available all over the world from your favourite incense dealer, or simply the corner shop. I got this one from Amazon as part of a 12 different boxes for £12 deal. 

Date: May 2026   Score: 23/50

***

HEM Corporation

Rajpal White Oudh

White Oudh is a modern synthetic perfume following the example of White Musk. It is intended to be lighter and fresher, without the animalistic character of oudh, and is generally considered to have been introduced as a synthetic in the early 21st century by perfumers such as Al Haramain and Thomas Kosmala; though there are also white oud fragrances which come from uninfected (and so unscented) agarwood trees. Though at the prices that white oudh is sold in India for use in incense, it is more likely that an Indian incense called White Oudh is using a synthetic. Rajpal classifies this as "Ultra Premium Incense". 

This White Oudh sold by Rajpal gives off a cold throw scent closer to oudh than the Rajpal Bakhoor I've just reviewed. It feels fresher and greener, with a more vibrant volatility. It leans into crisp icy aldehydes a little too much for my taste for an oudh focused incense; though it is an attractive fragrance overall, with a rotting leather vibe.

The scent on the burn is certainly in the area of oudh and bakhoor - some vague moments, and a sense of soggy oatmeal cookies wrapped in bonfire smoke, distract slightly, but overall it's an acceptable accord. It is a tad smoky, and builds, so is best at a well ventilated distance. Decent stuff.  

My samples come from Reddit user Brief_Chemistry. Packets are sold in India via the Rajpal website at 50g for ₹225 (£1.95) plus shipping. International purchases are made via WhatsApp +91 99209 36644, with payments done by bank transfer.  

Date: May 2026    Score: 30/50

***

Rajpal, Mumbai

Discussed on Reddit in 2026

Reviewed in Germany

Rajpal Bakhoor

Most of the samples I have of Rajpal's incense is termed "Ultra Premium". I've not been consistent over the years of including marketing terms and/or subtitles. Initially I included them, then I thought that the terms were redundant, and stopped including them  (sometimes removing them when I updated the post). And while on the whole I don't include them, I sometimes do. I initially included them on the Rajpal incense posts partly because that is how Brief_Chemistry, who gave me the samples, presented them, but also because it's a curious term which I've not encountered previously. Though I've now removed them.

  

The sticks are fat, heavy, and richly perfumed in the style of Flora incenses based on Sri Sai Flora Fluxo, which appears to have been the original Flora/Fluxo.  Interesting aroma - stale pipe tobacco mainly, with old dust, cobwebs, shoe polish, black pepper, and a melange of old woods, patchouli, and musk notes. There's a little crack of sunlight which brings in a wisp of florals. This should be my sort of scent, but this is too heavy and dusty. There's little richness, joy, vitality, energy or sex here. It is like an old abandoned stuffy office with dry, cracked leather, and old books falling apart, and a stern sense that corrections and discipline took place here long ago. There's turps and engine grease now. Hmmm. I find it compelling, and I keep sniffing. Though there's no joy. 

The scent on the burn is a development of the dilemma of the cold throw scent on the stick. There's smoky, woody elements here that I should love, but the presentation doesn't quite get there. It's just a tad too dry, and a tad too enclosed in one place. Maybe one or the other, and I'd be fine - but enclosed and dry while also taunting of the pleasures that could be found in a bakhoor fragrance is just too much for me.  That's not to say I'm rubbing this incense out. We all have times when we return to an incense that confused us or pushed us away, and then we find it has opened up for us. Our mood has changed, and now is the time. But at this moment, after approaching it in different rooms, it's not worked for me. I just get the sense that this is a moist Flora that has dried up, and lost its mojo. 

My samples come from Reddit user Brief_Chemistry. Packets are sold in India via the Rajpal website (which is unreliable)  at 50g for ₹225, or on Amazon India at 150g for ₹549 (£4.30p) plus shipping. International purchases are made via WhatsApp +91 99209 36644, with payments done by bank transfer.  

Date: May 2026    Score: 27/50

***

Rajpal, Mumbai

Rajpal Kasturi

 

Kasturi is the Hindi word for musk. Musk incense is generally composed of a blend of synthetics, with perhaps some patchouli, vetiver, and/or sandalwood oils used in slightly higher priced incenses. More expensive, traditional musk incenses may use traditional botanical substitutes such as ambrette (musk mallow) or labdanum. However, the bulk of everyday musk incense is likely to be mostly composed of - quite effective, though often blandly everyday - aroma chemicals. This Rajpal Kasturi is a bulky stick which is heavy with oils, and there's an earthy note here which could suggest the use of vetiver and sandalwood oil to liven up and give depth and character to the everyday aroma chemicals. I find this more promising than the synthetics heavy Kesar Kasturi I just reviewed. The sub-title on the packet is "Ultra Premium Incense". 

The scent on the burn is warm and generous. For such a bulky stick it is reasonably mellow, not too smoky or aggressive. There's some patchouli notes - musky, sweet, earthy, leafy. Very likeable. Ultimately it doesn't do much, and stays within a prescribed area of patchouli-musk-wood; however, what it does it does well. This is a likeable warm incense. 

My samples come from Reddit user Brief_Chemistry. Packets are sold in India via the Rajpal website at 50g for ₹250 (£1.96p) plus shipping. International purchases are made via WhatsApp +91 99209 36644, with payments done by bank transfer.  

Date: May 2026    Score: 31/50

***

Rajpal, Mumbai

Musk incense

Rajpal Kesar Kasturi

Kesar is saffron, and Kasturi is musk.  Both are suggested fragrance ideas rather than the real ingredients. Saffron is an expensive spice, rarely used in incense due to the cost; and genuine legal musk (extracted from the musk deer) is rare and expensive. Most incense makers blend low cost oils, such as cedarwood and clove for the saffron and vetiver and patchouli for the musk, with aroma chemicals, such as Safranal and Galaxolide. And it is likely that is what the maker of this incense has done. Though the scent on the stick is quite light, so it feels like some White Musk and some aldehydes have been used instead or alongside the standard ingredients. The sub-title on the packet is "Natural Incense". 

   

The scent on the burn is clean and modest. It unfolds as a modern White Musk and aldehyde room freshener. Quite acceptable. Fairly crisp and sweet, with some florals - rather more florals than expected. It's a modest but pleasant incense, leaning more into perfume-dipped territory than what is expected from traditional masala. 

My samples come from Reddit user Brief_Chemistry. Packets are sold in India via the Rajpal website at 50g for ₹120 (93p) plus shipping. International purchases are made via WhatsApp +91 99209 36644, with payments done by bank transfer.  Also available on eBay.co.uk - 2x50g packets for £14.39 with free postage.  

Date: May 2026    Score: 27/50

***

Rajpal, Mumbai

Saffron incense

  

Musk incense