Back in October 2015 I was in Oxford to take part in the Oxford Half Marathon, and while wandering through the market the day before the race I was attracted to some incense being burned on one of the stalls. It was a Sai Handicrafts Gold Sandal, and I bought it and enjoyed it, then put it away. While doing my Great Sort Out (keep, outhouse, or bin), I came upon the sticks again, and was really blown away by how good they are. So I ordered some more, plus a few others from Sai Handicrafts. This is one of the products I ordered. I tend to like loban incense, which along with sambrani is commonly regarded as another name for benzoin, though can also be a generic name for any fragrant tree resin such as benzoin or frankincense. Benzoin (and therefore also loban) is regarded as having a sweet vanilla scent. My personal association with benzoin / loban / sambrani is of a cold, crisp, mineral based scent. And that has been fairly constant. We are individuals, and while we mostly will share reactions and responses - laugh at jokes together, run from danger together, love chocolate together, there are occasions when we are known to divide - such as our reaction to Marmite, and there are occasions when the divide may be a minority or even unique taste or response. I suspect I have a minority response to loban - so where I smell cool mineral, others will be smelling sweet vanilla. Odd, isn't it?
I love this Hand Rolled Loban. The sticks have a generous amount of very neatly (at first glance they look machine extruded) hand rolled black charcoal paste (now very hard) on pink dyed machine cut bamboo splint. Length is the standard 7 inches of paste on 9 inches of stick. The scent on the stick is cool mineral, sweet, prickly raw sheep's wool (which usually signifies halmaddi to me), faint floral - the subtle, herbaceous green scent of a meadow daisy, and soft spice. I love it. It's clean, light, lively, uplifting, slightly medicinal.
The burn is slow, steady, just right. It's a long burn - around 70 minutes. And the scent is firm but gentle, and informs the whole house, cleansing it, and bringing in positive vibes. The scent lingers for ages. Impressive, well made stuff. I don't know where Sai Handicraft source this [2024 comment: Pinkesh of Sai Handicrafts tells me they make the incense themselves] , but it's a solid and decent loban incense. It is, to be fair, pretty much on a par with other decent single scent loban/sabrani/benzoin incense. If someone likes loban, they are odds on to like this. If they don't like loban, they are unlikely to enjoy this.
Date: Dec 2023 Score: 40
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