Shroff Agarbathis / Channabasappa & Co

 

Shroff Incense or Shroff Agarbathi & Perfumes (sometimes written as Shroff Channabasappa & Sons), based in Bangalore since 1882, is an incense company I have been interested in for a while. People who have tried them find them to be variable, and of personal taste, but a number find them to be very likable, with some fans claiming them to be supreme works of art. Shroff incense is sold as dry or wet, with the wet incense being more expensive and more generally liked. Their products are not readily available in the UK, but are available from Padma Store in Germany, and are imported into the US  by The Incense Sampler Works and sold via sites such as ExoticIncense for $2 a pack (but only the "dry" masala)  and IncenseOfTheAges for around $5 (for dry) or $7 (for wet) . There are also package deals of dry Shroff from Amazon and WalMart.  I know only a little about the company, and finding more information about them is difficult. According to ExoticIncense, the company exhibited at the 1914 Chicago World Fair. This may have happened, but my researches into incense indicate to me that the first appearance of incense at a world exhibition or fair was at the British Empire Exhibition of 1924 where incense on a bamboo stick (then called Oodabathi) was displayed and given away as gifts. India at that time was part of the British Empire, so it would have been appropriate for an Indian company to exhibit at the British Empire Exhibition. 

Incense at the 1933
Chicago World Fair

I'm aware that incense was at the 1933 World Fair in Chicago - I have a poster showing that "Lama Incense" was exhibited there. It's unclear if the incense was Tibetan or Chinese, since the Lama Temple  is a Tibetan temple in China, but it is unlikely that it was Indian.  I do have evidence (including pictures) that Shroff Agarbathis had a stand at the 1930 British Industries Fair in Olympia, London. 

The Shroff family stand at the 
1930 British Industries Fair in Olympia

EssenceOfTheAges say of Shroff that their "first agarbathi (incense) manufacturing factory opened in 1882". This would be close to twenty years before agarbathis were developed in Mysore according to research done by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. It is difficult to know what the Shroff company were doing in the late 1800s, though I am aware that Haridas Madhavdas Sugandi  and Vithaldas Narayandas and Sons, both of Pune, make similar claims, and we know that incense was being made and sold for thousands of years before agarbathis or joss sticks were first developed, so it is possible that all three companies were making and selling some form of incense, though perhaps not incense in the form of  sticks and cones as we know today - it is more likely to have been the dhoop form of incense, which is still used in India, though mostly in Tibet and Japan.  

I was unsure about the name, as I have seen it written various ways, Shroff, Channabasappa, Shroff Channabasappa & Sons, Channabasappa Company, etc. I have some Shroff packed in India, and the label reads: Shroff Agarbathis - Packed by: Channabasappa & Co. That lead me to speculate that Shroff make the incense, while Channabasappa  packets and markets it, and I wondered if they were two separate departments of the same company, or two different companies. I wrote to Shroff, and Prathik Shroff confirmed: "To your question, yes, it’s two sides of the same coin. Channabasappa & Co is our official trade name and Shroff is our family name and we decided to keep that name as we have for the past 100 years or more."  They have also said: "The initial name of our firm which was established in 1882 was Shroff Channabasappa & Sons."

The family have their shop on Avenue Road in Bangalore - this is a busy retail street with numerous other incense families making and/or selling incense as they have done for around a hundred years. 

Avenue Road in 2021, three doors down 

from the Shroff  shop

So, what I have learned is that the company was founded in 1882 by Shroff Channabasappa. They sold incense to the Maharaja of Mysore (Mysore was the original name of the state of Karnataka), and they had a stand at the 1930 British Industries Fair in Olympia. In 1949 they were one of the founding members of the All India Agarbathi Manufacturers’ Association, along with other leading Mysore/Karnataka incense companies. Mysore is the region where incense with a bamboo stick was first developed, and the Mysore manufacturers T.l Updhayay and Attar Khasim Sahib  had displayed this idea at the British Empire Exhibition in 1924, so the Shroff Channabasappa family were well placed in the region that was at the heart of the early development of modern Indian incense.  

The company still use some of the original, secret family recipes (some of the recipes were stolen in a data breach, so clones may turn up), though are also keen to develop new recipes to expand the range, and to utilise some of the positives of new technology, particularly to use high-quality man-made fragrances to replace the original raw materials which are no longer readily available, in order to keep some of the old recipes alive. Some of Shroff's original recipes can contain up to 20 fragrances, a number of which are rare and valuable, and so quite costly.

Reviews

Shroff Incense Mogra (M)
Score: 45

Shroff Channabasappa Suganda Bathi
Score: 43

 

Shroff Channabasappa Pearl
Score: 39

 

Shroff Channabasappa Orange Blossom

Score: 39

Shroff Channabasappa Super Star
Score: 35

Shroff Green Durbar 
Score: 35

 

Shroff Channabasappa Amber 707

Score: 28

 

Shroff White Sandal 

Score: 27

Scents tried: 8
Highest score: 43
Lowest score: 27
Average: 35

Conclusion:  A small traditional Indian producer with a shop in Avenue Road, Bangalore, founded in 1882. They sold incense to the local Mysore king, exhibited in a British Industries fair in Olympia in 1930, and were a founder member of the All India Agarbathi Manufacturers’ Association, so this is a company with a long, and at one time distinguished, history. They have not prospered over the years, so have not expanded or modernised. They continue to make incense in the traditional manner, partly because they do not have the money for investment, and partly because that is what their small market expects. They wish to modernise and expand, but are constrained both by their lack of money, and by the expectations of their market. People buy from them because they are traditional. Some of the recipes and ingredients have been modernised over the years, mostly because of dwindling supplies and rising costs, though sometimes because they genuinely feel that a modern method or ingredient is beneficial to the incense, and acceptable to the customer. So they are not completely locked into the past.

They are not a well known company, but have got a small and loyal market of buyers who enjoy traditionally made Indian incense. They group their incense into dry and wet masala. The dry masala is cheaper and contains little to no essential oils - relying on dried ingredients - leaves, petals, tree bark, resin ,etc; the wet masala adds essential oils to the mix. In my experience it is the wet masala incenses that produce the richer, sweeter, more attractive scent. The wet masalas, however, are not thick and damp like flora or fluxo incenses; they are more in line with the modern perfumed-masala incenses.
I like Shroff. I like their history, and their struggle to make a place for themselves as a small traditional company in a modern market; and I like their wet masala incense. I am less keen on the dry stuff. I think to appreciate Shroff it is better to pay a few dollars more and get the wet stuff.

***

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