Incense in The Wind: Oriental Agarbatti Co.

Tuesday, 7 October 2025

Oriental Agarbatti Co.

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 I have 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.

I had a perfume-dipped incense by Oriental a few years ago, and I graded it as the worse incense I have ever had (it now shares that honour with some backflow cones from China). But this "new" Oriental, at least the perfumed-masala sticks, produces appealing incense. A little mainstream, and a little heavy on the perfume rather than the natural and complementary aspects of an incense, but decent enough, especially for everyday room freshening and modest atmosphere/mood creation.

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