Monastery Mount Athos Frankincense Holy Great Monastery Vatopedi Aroma Amber

 

Mount Athos is a Greek peninsular-island named after the mountain at its far end. It is a religious area with 20 monasteries, and, like the Vatican, it has  autonomy to run things its own way, which means only men over the age of 18 are allowed to visit. Incense sold from the area is popular for religious services, particularly among Catholics, and it has a reputation for the quality of its frankincense.  Frankincense is a resin from the Boswellia tree which grows in parts of Africa and India. The Boswellia tree doesn't grow in the Mount Athos region, but the monks there have developed their own recipes for grading and blending the resins they buy in. 

This incense resin comes from the Monastery Mount Athos website, monastiriaka.gr, which sells products from several of the monasteries. This resin comes from the Vatopedi monastery, which is officially ranked as the second most important in Mount Athos. It is pure white, and appears to be a fine white powder which has been rolled into a firm dry tube, like a dhoop stick, and then sliced into manageable chunks. It is very powdery, like chalk, and the white powder gets everywhere! The powder smells gorgeous - very frankincense! Sweet soft citric with a mild base of musk. 

My learning about frankincense indicates that the colour can be an indicator of quality, or at least of the nature of the scent. The most highly regarded frankincense resin is white, which has a light lemony scent, then comes gradually darker tones though amber until the least regarded brown which has the strongest or roughest scent - the base, musky tones which tend to be more commonly associated with frankincense, though lacking in the lightness, freshness and citric quality of the white resin. 

My experiences with electric incense burners (I have a third burner now) reveal to me that the hotter the burner, the quicker the resin burns. When a resin starts to heat up it lets out the top notes, the citric notes, first, then as it gets hotter the middle, flowery, notes come though, and finally the heavier, musky notes. At the end the tough tar in the resin has collected and that now burns, giving off some smoke and at this point the resin scent can become unpleasant. When burned quickly at high heat, as on a charcoal disc, all these scents happen very quickly, almost at the same time (depending on the size, hardness, and quality of the resin); when burned on a low heat the scents emerge in order. For those who like the light, citric notes, the first stages of the burn will be the most attractive. For those who like slightly more complex notes, a little bit flowery, the next stage will be the most attractive. Then it goes on to woody scent in the next stage. And for those who like particularly heavy, dense, musky scents, the final stage before the resin starts to char and smoke will be favourite. 

On my new electric burner I have a grill which keeps the resin raised above the hot plate. This slows down the burning a little, and helps prevent scorching. I like it. 

Though the resin appears to be white, it is actually just a coating of white powder. As the incense burns the resin itself becomes apparent as the white powder burns off, and the resin inside starts to melt and reveal itself as a mostly pale amber colour which gets darker as it heats up. 

This frankincense is sold as "Aroma Amber". So is the resin amber or frankincense? What is the white powder? Is the white powder the frankincense, and the resin amber? Or is it the other way round? 

As the incense burns the first citric notes emerge, first it is a light lemon that gradually becomes deeper, turning into orange, and then more woody and flowery with honey, caramel, and apple coming forward. AS the resin melts and turns dark, so the darker base notes come through. Suggestions of musk and biscuit and candy dough. As it begins to scorch I turn off the heat, as I don't like it when the resin  gets smoky. The room is filled with a warm, sweet scent more aligned with amber than frankincense, and it lingers all day. 

This is a top quality incense. 

Date: Dec  2020   Score:  38 

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Frankincense