A one stick sample from Padma Store in Germany. Cottage Industries are part of the Pondicherry Ashram. I am fascinated by the Pondicherry community, and the range of incenses that come from there. I am aware, though, that I have developed something of a negative attitude toward incense from Pondicherry, and that I am perhaps not treating them in a neutral manner. I think there are a complex of reasons for this - partly my sensitivity toward strong use of halmaddi (it prickles and stings my eyes and soft palates), partly my own perception that the Pondicherry incenses are geared more toward Western tourists than to the domestic market (even though I have no basis for this negative perception), partly that my experience so far is that the style of incense from Pondicherry tends to be dry and serious, and perhaps narrowly focused, rather than the light, playful, sensual, sweet, or complex incenses that are my favourites. I shall be exploring more Pondicherry incenses, and revisiting previously tried ones, with a more neutral attitude and see if I can get a bit closer to understanding them.
This stick has a wood based fragrant paste tightly and thinly rolled around a plain medium sized bamboo stick. It is quite dry, and there is no finishing powder. The scent on the stick is pine toilet cleaner, band-aid, table polish (perhaps a hint of beeswax), soap, perhaps a hint of rose petal, and clay. It's actually more pleasant and inviting than it sounds. At the same time, it is not a scent that fills me with pleasure or excitement. So, at this point, the scent and the stick appearance are mostly neutral.
On the burn it is woody, dry, serious, prickly, peppery, a little smoky, some touches of spearmint, hints of cedarwood (which I tend to find with Pondicherry incenses), and suggestions of Tibetan incense herbs. Indeed, in some respects this is closer to Tibetan incense than most Indian incenses. I am not detecting halmaddi.
It is not an incense that gives me much pleasure, but it is not offensive. It feels like a modest incense - modest by design and intention. The history of the Cottage Industries brand is that it was started in 1949 by Mirra Alfassa, The Mother, to provide the ashram with incense. So the aim was for this to be a modest low cost product for their own use. Surplus was sold to visitors, and by 1973 was being exported. It is sold under both the Cottage Industries brand name and the name of the ashram: Sri Aurobindo. I have not yet researched fully into the ashram or the incense brand, but I suspect that this is likely to be one of the original recipes, and that they were known by the numbers, so 14 is sandalwood, 13 is musk, 12 is jasmine, etc. But that is speculation.
Date: Jan 2022 Score: 23
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Cottage industries Mattipal is amazing. I also like their sandal wood but it’s not up to my hype. Their Mattipal is amazing.
ReplyDeleteI am curious about mattipal. It is a tree resin (like myrrh, frankincense and halmaddi), though is not often used. I've not had any incense with mattipal (as far as I know). The resin comes from the Sacred Fig: Glossary of incense (I need to do more work on that glossary).
DeleteFrom the scientists: 1. Introduction
DeleteAilanthus triphysa (Dennst.) Alston also known Ailanthus malabarica DC. Also locally called as Matti. It belongs to the family simarubaceae usually having cylindrical trunk and height up to 30 meter and diameter of 1.2 meter (Chandrasekar, 1996) [3]
. It is widely distributed over North Australia and Asia (Kandu and Laskar, 2010) [10]. In India it occurs mainly in natural evergreen forest of Western Ghats (PID, 1948. Its oozes gum-oleoresin from the wounded trunk of the tree is aromatic and is called Halmaddi in Kannada (Karnataka) and Mattipal in Malayalam (Kerala). Because of its fragrance, it is used in the manufacture of high value incense sticks (Nagchampa) which is used nationally as well as in other countries like USA,
UK, Tibet etc. (Joshi et al., 1985) [6]
. Ailanthus triphysa wood is considered as best
matchwood (Indira, 1996) [5]. The light soft wood is utilized for making packing cases, toys,
catamarans, and drums (Kumar et al., 2000) [8]. Ailanthus is a popular support tree for pepper
vines and is important component of silvipastoral and agrisilvicultural systems in Kerala
(Kumar et al., 1994; Kumar, 2001) [7, 9]
. As gum-oleoresin are secondary metabolites of trees which mainly depends on climatic parameters so the focus is given on the relation between climatic parameter and gumoleoresin yield. Additionally the effect of bark thickness on gum oleoresin production is also done which is again rare and unique study.
Thanks for the article. :)
DeleteThanks for that Ho Go. I recall reading that same information a few years ago when I first came upon the term Mattipal, and reaching the conclusion that halmaddi and mattipal were different names for the same gum. But when I looked into it yesterday, I found information that mattipal was from a different tree, and forgot that earlier research. Re-examining the sources, I feel that mattipal is an alternate name for halmaddi. It may also be possible that mattipal is the name for the gum from the sacred fig.
DeleteThank you Ho Go. Google told me Halmaddi was a resin of the Bodhi tree ((Ficus Religiosa). Thanks for clearing this up.
ReplyDeleteSteve you want to stay away from Mattipal then it's certainly just pure Halmaddi. Although I agree with Vid, I quite love the smell.
Also, the incense sold from the Pondicherry Ashram is not geared toward tourists or the western world and I say this because they have a website that delivers all their products within India as well and they're all quite reasonably priced. Almost every other brand, however, either operates on an export-only basis or they make certain special incense lines for export only...even if the manufacturing happens in India.
There are also many other brands in Pondicherry that are 'For profit' and tourist traps.
My confession is that I had and have no basis for my prejudice regarding incense from Ponidicherry being geared toward tourists, but Ho Go brought it to my attention, and I want to be upfront about it, and keep it in mind. If I don't keep that prejudice exposed, there is the possibility I will slip back into it. Most prejudices are subconscious and work in the darkness.
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