This is the second non-perfume-dipped incense I have reviewed from HEM. The other was also part of the Soham series: Soham Dhoop Batti. While the other was also called a dhoop stick (I assume that batti means stick, as in agarbatti), it was a masala stick rather than what I understand to be a dhoop stick, which is a paste incense without a bamboo core. Masala incense is dried ingredients rolled or applied to a bamboo stick, sometimes with essential oils, but the fragrance ingredients tend to be in a dried powdery form rather than a paste, either wet or dried.
So, this is a traditional dhoop - a much older form of incense than the masala or perfumed bamboo sticks called agarbatti or joss sticks. Dhoop is a fragrant paste usually rolled or extruded into the shape of sticks or small logs; it is the form that travelled through Asia, and is the method still used in Japan, though the dhoop there tends to be very fine dried stick shapes, while the dhoop still created in India tends to be fatter and wetter.
Soham is a Hindu mantra meaning "I am that" - I am part of the universe.
Mogra is, of course, jasmine - a very popular fragrance for incense in India.
This is a modestly pleasant incense. It does smell of incense jasmine, and is quite clean and invigorating. I wish I could say it was more wonderful than the perfumed HEM incense, as I know that incense enthusiasts hate perfumed incense, seeing it as somehow more false and less natural than traditional forms such as masala and dhoop. And here we have one of the oldest and most natural and traditional forms of incense in India, and it is pleasant, but it doesn't rock my world in the same way as HEM's perfumed Frankincense-Myrrh does, nor is it as cute and fun as HEM's Baby Powder. Yes, it is more wonderful than MOST of HEM's perfumed incense, but not all. And that has surprised me as well.
On the whole I prefer traditional and natural incense; but I keep an open mind, and I have been surprised sometimes by how much I like a particular perfumed incense, and how bored I can be by an indifferent masala incense. This may not rock my world, but it is a very decent jasmine dhoop.
Date: Aug 2019 Score: 33
***
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| HEM Corporation |
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| Best jasmine incense |
You’re kind of correct on the definition of batti, usually batti means something that gives out light like moombatti (Candle in Hindi), ruibatti (Cotton thread used in Indian style oil lamps) etc. Dhoop batti, it is also an another name for masala or flora incense.
ReplyDeleteI liked soham dhoop range, my favorites are Mogra, Champa and Rose. I recently reviewed another hem dhoop, ornamental dhoop stick, which reminds me of incense that is burnt in oldest and well known shops in the narrow markets of Alwar and Mumbai.
Thanks for the info on batti. I ran those words, ruibatti, etc, though some translators and some translated the batti part as light, and some as wick. Language is a vague and subtle thing. Sometimes words have opposite meanings which I love - such as cleave, which means both "to separate" and "to cling". And fast which means both "speedy movement" and "very still", as in "run fast" and "stand fast".
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