Happy Hari / King of Incense King of Frankincense

This is another of Paul Eagle's King(s) of Incense series that is machine made - the paste is applied evenly and smoothly. It is a charcoal paste with the fragrant ingredients stirred in to create a curious melange of blacks and greys. It burns evenly and slowly, lasting around 40 minutes ( the 3-4 hours claimed is for the whole pack). Paul didn't reveal to me who made his incense, other than saying it was a backstreet cottage industry that he stumbled upon when in India. While most of the Indian incense cottage industry employ women to hand roll, there are a significant number who have bought a machine to mix the ingredients and semi-automatically apply the paste to a stick which is typically fed in by hand by the worker, and this is the case here. The woman operating the machine is apparently the same woman who used to hand roll the sticks.

This has a dry, slightly sharp smoke with a pleasant and reasonably evocative scent. It is fairly earthy and herbal, and is more reminiscent of Tibetan incense than Indian. There is a patchouli and cannabis nip to it, and has a Seventies festival feel about it - a sort of campfire at night feel. There are some sweaty lambs wool notes in here as well. And a bit of frying bacon. Odd the sorts of scents that come out of some incense sticks.

I didn't think I'd like this when I first lit it as it is so sharp and herbal, but there are interesting depths. There is a bit more going on than first appears. Just put the "Frankincense" part of the name out of your mind. Think more patchouli and Tibetan herbal incense.


Date: Sept 2017   Score: 36

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Happy Hari Incense

Frankincense