Temu White Sage Incense Sticks

 

Bought off Temu: 83p for 10 sticks.  I've  had better luck with dhoop style incense from China - be it the mini coil form called small auspicious clouds, or extruded stick form, like Japanese incense, than with joss stick style incense - where a paste is extruded onto a bamboo splint. I am expecting that the fragrant paste is the same in both dhoop style and joss sticks, and the bamboo splint is simply used for convenience, ruggedness,  and popularity, though is not part of Chinese incense tradition. 

There is a light perfume on the stick - lemon accented, hints of soap, and perhaps a hint of herb. The scent on the burn is a bit smoky. I prefer charcoal paste as a combustible than wood paste. Charcoal has no scent, which is why it has been used for thousands of years to burn resins, but wood does have a scent. If the wood used is fragrant then that is fine, but the fragrance of the wood would then need to integrate with the other fragrance ingredients. And fragrant wood is more expensive than everyday wood, so the price of the incense would go up. The more fragrant and pleasant the wood, the more pleasant the incense, but also the more expensive. You can have very cheap and delightful charcoal-paste incense, but you're really unlikely to get very cheap and delightful wood-paste incense.  To be fair, there are pleasant aspects to the aroma - there is some white sage, and there's a bit of chocolate, and other dark scent notes, with a modicum of sweetness here and there. 

On the whole its not an unpleasant aroma - there are good moments here and there. But it's not really my thing. Some herby bits, some life, some interest, some quirky chocolate bits. It's OK - better than I expected. But it doesn't really lift me or excite me. It's pretty much an everyday mild aroma room freshener. 

Date: March 2025   Score: 24

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Good & bad Chinese incense