Nag Champa Tru Blu was one of the last things that Paul Eagle was working on before his death on Christmas Day 2016. A nag champa (magnolia and sandalwood) incense in the style of the original Satya Nag Champa, which sold in blue boxes. There was some anticipatory discussion, such as this on Fragantica. And the incense was listed for sale on some sites around Aug 2016.
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| Print of the label |
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| Promotional post of the incense packs |
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| Happy Hari Tru Blu top Satya Nag Champa below |
The Satya has a generous amount of still soft charcoal paste rolled around a plain machine-cut bamboo splint, and then given a fluffy coating of melnoorva powder. The scent is very similar, though much softer - less clear, and not as sweet or joyful. Very attractive, though. And really, very, very similar.
On the burn the Tru Blu is pure - not smoky, and with few or no off notes. Bits of basic wood scent do dominate briefly now and again, but mostly it is the heart notes that are apparent, candied violets, a touch of parma violets, magnolia - waxy floral notes underscored by some wood. Few of the delightful sweet, light, feminine notes apparent on the stick survive the burn, but this is fairly common. Though the paste is quite thin, the scent is bold enough to be detected from a distance, and will inform a small to medium sized room.
Satya's Nag Champa takes a while to settle into the burn - initially it is burning wood that is mostly detected, then come heart notes of warm, prickly sheep's wool, which is what I associate with halmaddi. Some sweetness comes through, quite gently, with a subtle range of other scents that keep the incense interesting, but at no point does it really become profound. It's a warm, comforting, pleasant scent that hovers between sweet and dry, and between woody and floral. An attractive, reassuring, and calming scent, but not one to really delight the mind or senses.
The experience of the two incenses are very similar on the stick, but do somewhat diverge on the burn. I think Paul's intention was to have an incense stick that was similar to Satya's Nag Champa before the brother's split. At that time in 2016, it was largely believed that the reason for the decline in quality of Satya Nag Champa was due to the Indian government banning the extraction of halmaddi resin because it was harming the trees which were grown and valued for their wood. My own researches have shown that a few years after the death of their father in approx 1999, his two sons jointly owned Satya. One brother, Balkrishna Setty, remained in charge of production in Bangalore, while Nagraj, based in Mumbai, remained in charge of international distribution. In 2014, the brothers split up. Nagraj had the distribution, but not the original production, so for some years he sold Satya incense that was not made to the original recipes. Balkrishna sold the original incense, but struggled to get international distribution because his brother had all the contacts. Balkrishna took his brother to court around 2016-2017 to stop him from distributing poor quality incense under the Satya name. That appears to have worked, as the quality of Nagraj distributed incense has improved. See Satya (Shrinivas Sugandhalaya) for more details.
Anyway, back in 2016 when Paul contracted for the Tru Blu, he would have believed that the decline in Satya Nag Champa was due to Satya not using halmaddi in the recipe. I suspect that he ordered some nag champa to be made with halmaddi. However, by 2016 the ban on halmaddi production had been lifted, so there would be no reason for Satya not to be using it. Plus, halmaddi is not an essential ingredient in a nag champa, which gets its aroma from magnolia champaca not from the resin of the ailanthus triphysa tree. And, of the two incenses, I detect more halmaddi in the Satya!
Both of these incenses are attractive, but both deliver more on the stick than they do on the burn. I am a little disappointed in both, and I may be in a position where I may consider down grading my score on my review of Satya Nag Champa. I've largely held it at 50 (my top score) over the years because it was the incense that got me into exploring the world of incense. It was the first incense that really knocked me for six. I have romantic and nostalgic reasons for keeping it at 50, but I have already knocked it off the top spot by Koya's Rasta (which is an astonishing incense), so I might as well give it the score I would give it today, as if approaching it for the first time, which would be 40.
As for Tru Blu. It's good, but nothing really special.
Date: Dec 2022 Score: 34
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| Nag Champa |
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