Patanjali Aastha Agarbatti Tathastu

Revisiting this. It has a rather pleasant and interesting spice aroma, quite savoury. Cumin. Wood. Musk. I rather like it. I'm now starting to see why this is popular in India. 

Date: Jan 2023    Score: 30  

I came upon a series of Top 10 lists of top Indian incense companies, and made a post about them: Top Incense Brands in India. One of the companies that figures fairly high on most lists is Patanjali Agarbatti - a branch of  Patanjali Ayurved, a manufacturer and distributor of various foods and goods in India, who were founded in 1956 in New Delhi.  I had not heard of them before. I sought out some of their incense and found a UK supplier: AyurvedaProducts.co.uk who sells them for a modest price - this 20g/16 stick Tathastu box was £1.49. It retails in India for 10 Rupees (10p or 13 US cents). The sticks are machine-extruded charcoal paste on a machine-cut bamboo splint, impregnated with a perfume. This is standard perfumed incense, the most popular form of incense in India. It can be used to freshen a room, to cover a bad smell, to create a mood, to keep away flies, or to be used as part of a pooja ritual.  

Tathastu, according to Google translate, means "so be it". Hmm. It must be a popular expression because there was a Hindi-language film made with that title in 2006. Oh well, so be it...   

There are petrol tones on the stick, but the scent is pleasant, if a little hard to pin down. Sandalwood, prune, wool, jasmine, leather.... various notes, but nothing really specific. It's kind of cool - mostly neutral, modest, pleasant, inoffensive, meh. It's OK - not something worth spending time over.  It's an OK everyday perfumed incense. 

Date: March 2022   Score: 22  

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Patanjali Agarbatti