Oriental is the incense house founded by Attar Syed Rahman Hussain / Attar Khasim Saheb, the businessman, along with Mr. T. L. Upadycya, who created the bamboo-core agarbatti. So a fairly significant figure in incense culture. By using a bamboo splint it became quicker and easier to make incense sticks. Dhoop, which was the previous main style of Indian incense stick, has a slower production process because it needs to be extruded rather than rolled. Oriental appear to be refurbishing themselves - the samples (which came to me via Julian of The Incense Atelier) are titled as by New Oriental Agarbatti Co., and the website is currently (Oct 2025) "under maintenance". But this "new" company was founded in 1890 and is the oldest incense house in the world to make agarbatti.
Hand rolled paste on orange coloured machine-cut bamboo splints. The paste is rock hard, but does crumble with some black dust. I think it could be a wood paste because it's so hard, or perhaps a mix of charcoal and wood. There is a thin and slightly gritty sprinkling of melnoorva/masala powder, and - whoosh - a healthy dose of liquid fragrance with a sharp volatility and a manly woody cologne perfume. I like it. But then I do like oudh/bakhoor. This does project more like a cologne than an incense.
On the burn the cologne/bakhoor story continues. It's a woody, perfumed, and very attractive scent, quite masculine. Fairly mainstream. This is an incense that could easy be very popular among regular incense buyers, though is perhaps less attractive to the "connoisseur", as it follows a fairly predicable course, and remains on that course, so little different or interesting or special happens, and it is more perfume focused than incense focused. I like it. It diffuses gently around the room and leaves a lasting perfume. There's nothing really objectionable here, and I'd be happy to burn this in the house as an everyday warming woody room freshener.
Date: Oct 2025 Score: 33
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Hi Steve,
ReplyDeleteI’ve come to realize that certain notes — like fresh citrus, aquatic, linen, and other highly abstract ones — rarely find acceptance in incense. It feels to me that the timeless charm of incense lies in the classical style of perfumery, especially when it’s crafted with the old school materials. The Satya's Nagchampa is a good example and see how much it is loved. In a way, I see incense for spaces as what fine fragrance is for the body — both meant to create an atmosphere, but in their own distinct realms.
Warm regards,
Alok
From my observations over the years, it seems to me that people use incense for a variety of reasons. In our household we use incense for a variety of reasons. The most basic reason is to repel flies. We burn incense in the outhouse where we feed the cats - the main intention there is to discourage flies from coming in. The next step up is to cover bad smells - and we do that again in the outhouse to cover up the smell of the catfood (we don't eat meat, so we don't like the smell), and also in the toilet, and also in the kitchen, or after cooking. The next step up is as a room freshener, to simply create a pleasant scent in the house. A little up from that, is when - as you say - we want to create a certain mood or atmosphere. I like a fresh citrus in the morning to wake the house up and give it energy. Other times I want a more mellow mood. And there are times when I may want a romantic or seductive or sexy mood. There's incense I may use when we are about to have visitors to cleanse the house and leave some kind of refined scent that doesn't call attention to itself, but is more than just a room freshener smell. There's smudging, when I want to cleanse or wake up the house (and/or myself), and I'll use a smudge or a strong incense, perhaps a dhoop, or maybe several sticks, and walk around the house wafting smoke into corner. I do like a smoky incense for that, and I like to create patterns with the smoke - sometimes I like to push small smoke rings through larger ones! At the top there's incense I burn because I want to think about the fragrance and appreciate it, like listening to music. At those moments I want an incense that is interesting, perhaps even challenging. An incense that goes on a journey and/or has several facets.
DeleteThere isn't one single incense, and there isn't an incense made that can cover all uses.
And even though I like a wide range of incenses, there are some I don't (yet?) get along with, or don't fully appreciate/understand. Asian incense, especially Chinese and Japanese, I struggle with because a) it uses wood powder as a combustible, and I appear to be quite sensitive to the smell of smouldering wood paste, and b) the fragrance content is very mild, so either my attention wanders, or I simply can't find space for it in most (all?) of the uses I mention above. One use of the Asian incense I could appreciate is the game of Kodo, where subtle incense is passed from person to person. And that could really only work with a very mild incense, as you are experiencing several incenses in a short spell of time. I know when I do comparisons between incenses with the girls, we do find our noses get satiated quite quickly, and have to leave a lot of space sometimes. Gentle Asian incense would be better for doing subtle comparisons quite quickly.
Satya's Nag Champa is an agreeably flexible incense as that can cover a lot of uses.
Hi Steve,
ReplyDeleteYou’re absolutely right about the wood powder — it’s true that incense made with wood powder will never produce a clean scent while burning. Interestingly, some people in India proudly market their incense as “charcoal-free,” without realizing that this actually diminishes both the performance and the overall experience for customers.
Warm regards,
Alok
I have noted on some blogs and forums, a negative attitude to charcoal. I think there are several possibilities. I suspect the main one stems from bargain basement everyday perfume-dipped incense which is almost always charcoal based, and has no melnoorva/masala covering. Such sticks serve a purpose, but are not refined or sophisticated, and simply give out crude scents. People who are looking for one or more of the top end uses for incense will not be impressed with such bargain basement sticks, and will assume that the issue with such sticks is the use of charcoal, and perhaps may not understand that most masala sticks are also made with charcoal, except that the charcoal is not seen because it is covered in melnoorva/masala powder. When your intended market is saying they don't like charcoal then you can either go to the time and trouble of explaining the advantages of charcoal, or you can go with the flow and tell them that you don't use charcoal.
DeleteAnother possibility is that people have used charcoal discs for burning resin, and the charcoal disc may have self-igniting chemicals impregnated in it which can give off off-notes. I prefer to use either an electric burner or a tea-light burner these days because of the off-notes I sometimes find in charcoal discs.
DeleteAnother possible aspect, which I can also understand is a personal sensitivity to charcoal. I've talked about it with Irene, and she says she gets some scent from charcoal which she's not comfortable with. And I understand that, and I think I know the scent she's talking about, a sort of steam coal scent. I get that sometimes from charcoal, especially the soft charcoal used for drawing. But I can't say I've noticed it when charcoal is used in an incense stick as the other fragrances tend to obscure it. But we are all different. And there may be others like Irene who are sensitive to that particular charcoal scent. And they are not sensitive to the smouldering paper scent of burning wood dust.
DeleteEach to their own at the end of the day.