Incense of the Day

[Simla House]

Yi-Xin Craft Incense: Sovereign

Energizing and clean blend of sandalwood and hojari frankincense.
Frankincense is actually difficult to capture in incense form. It's hard to process because of it's sticky nature and often comes across flat or charred.

I have maybe 18 varieties of frankincense that I use just with a ceramic heater for study and blends, and rarely find anything that does Frankincense justice in a stick form. Common Japanese sticks like Tennendo's or Minorien's Fu-in Frankincense fail to capture the actual presence of the resin.
These sticks are fresh, the sandalwood is clean, and the hojari in this stick in beyond one dimensional.
As a frankincense fiend, I'm quite pleased with this!
I'm enjoying it with a 23 year old white tea (Fu-ding baicha) today 😄

 

[Maunamoku]

Brunei incense, made by a dear friend in Malaysia. Paired with Marukyu Koyamaen "Kiun" matcha.

 

[Oudamberlove]

Minorien Kyara Chokoh #5 old stock

Such a delicious blend of agarwood, cedar, spices, and kyara. Aging quite well😊

 

[PersonelHigh]

Today I burned "FOR THE BUDDHA" from Ken @ craft incense. I like medicinal incense sometimes, this had a celery vibe. Pleasant.

 

[Castingshadows]

Today I burned "FOR THE BUDDHA" from Ken @ craft incense. I like medicinal incense sometimes, this had a celery vibe. Pleasant.

Interesting observations. To my nose it’s ultra sweet with a rich caramel note and ouddy backbone. I just burned my last stick and it always make whatever drawer I put the packaging in smell like sweet fenugreek.

 

[Mr.P]

It’s interesting, how different observers respond to the same material like this…. I know that olfaction is influenced in multiple ways by prior experience so it is not surprising that two people could have such divergent perception. I have many oils that seemed bland or harsh that i have come to appreciate as i learned to tune into the nuances and as olfactory receptors adapted

 

[Oudamberlove]

Nippon Kodo Kyara Asuka

I don’t stick everyday, but smelling this one makes me want to light up daily again, so I immediately followed it by Baieido Kyara Koshiboku long stick, then some Shoyeido Sho-kaku. Yummmmmm.

 

[Taesik Yun]

Tibetan Medical College's Holy Land Grade 2

I bought this about 4 years ago(review) but very seldomly used because it's VERY potent incense.
I think it was Olfactory Rescue Service who introduced this incense to general public first, which also made me buying this in the first place.

The smell perfectly aligns with my preconception of a Tibetan Buddhist temple.
rustic, alluring, pungent, herbal, woody, and musky.

it is masterfully crafted.

but I don't appreciate the volume of this incense. it's too loud.

 

[Maunamoku]

Dr Incense, Samadhi (sinking version)

Powerful!

 

[Oudamberlove]

KZ Tarakan stick

Still reminds me of Sabah agarwood.

 

[hawk_757]

Enjoying some Old stock Matsu no Yowai from Shoyeido (thanks to Kotaro at Japanincense/Kohshi). Honey and apricot jam Oudy goodness 👌🏻

Probably bust in to my 2018 Warm and Fuzzies ripe Puerh today, too.

 

[Olfactory Nomad]

Shoyeido - Beckoning Spring (Agarwood) very freaking nice. Will definitely get more of these.

 

[Maunamoku]

Processed Sinking Brunei this morning.

Has anyone here tried to process their wood by cooking/pao zhi?

 

[Mr.P]

What would happen if you distilled or extracted processed wood?? Might be very interesting.

 

[Maunamoku]

What would happen if you distilled or extracted processed wood?? Might be very interesting.

I discussed this briefly with Dr. Incense, along with the potential processing of Kynam.

The difficulty with processing wood for extraction is that the quantity of wood required is too high, it would be technically too difficult to process 10-100kg of wood. However, I would be very interested in seeing an artisanal extraction with 1-2kg of processed resinous wood used.

 

[Castingshadows]

What would happen if you distilled or extracted processed wood?? Might be very interesting.

Tinctures are the way to go. They actually smell really nice and extract easily into the ethanol since it’s already ground up finely.

 

[Mr.P]

I think the best is yet to come as far as extraction parameters for cultivated kinam. There has to be some way to capture that immense burst of mouthwatering bittersweet aroma that is released when it is heated but not quite burned as opposed to the softer scents of the raw wood. I’m sure anything I come up with has been tested and discussed many times, but…

if I can get my hands on a decent quantity of shavings at a price I can afford I can easily do experiments with pre-treatment of cultivated kinam on a very small scale. Even at a scale at which literal oil recovery is impractical, I have a way to deal with that, capture the scent and still end up with a functional product and not just water with a drop of oil dispersed over the surface.

This would not be on any kind of production scale I’m talking just for data collection. this data could be used to do production on a more efficient scale. DM me if you want to work on this. My apparatus at the moment is 100% old school copper all the way through “field still” style.

One is very small desktop unit you can operate off an alcohol lamp. This is good for quick tests. You can distill a full charge of liquid in about 20 minutes from the time you ignite the lamp. Beyond this, it is challenging because it’s small and there’s no way to introduce liquid without opening the still.

The larger unit can handle quite a bit more water and raw materials, and has an optional inline herb chamber above the kettle for steam distillation (which will be a little bit more intense than hydro even at ambient conditions due to the release of thermal energy when steam condenses… this is why steam burns are so terrible.$

If this turns out to be inappropriate, I could easily pick up the glass set up again for just micro extractions.

 

[Mr.P]

Tinctures are the way to go. They actually smell really nice and extract easily into the ethanol since it’s already ground up finely.

I am very excited to do more experimenting with tinctures. I have a number that have been very useful in my blending experiments

Here is an idea I am planning to test out at some point down the road. I got the general idea from a Japanese patent… this is the rube Goldberg version.

The basic idea is to dry heat kinam and use forced air to bubble the smoke through some kind of liquid and infuse it attar style with the aroma. This allows you to make an attar at any temperature and without dealing with water and steam as a propellant. Also at home on your desktop!

Imagine the kind of fragrances you could make using this? This will definitely be part of my lineup for my home extractions. I can 3-D print any parts that don’t get too hot. The receiving liquid could be alcohol for that style of perfumery, sandalwood oil, even a plain Jane cultivated distilled kinam oil (I never thought I would utter words like that unironically in my lifetime) that would be more exotic with a layer of the bitter sweetness. I am not disparaging distilled kinam oils. I just think there are some very simple ones that are beautiful, but might benefit from a little more depth. Also, the distillates are less viscous and I think the more viscous the liquid in the receiver is the more difficult it will be to properly infuse it. With something low viscosity like alcohol (were very very fine bubbles can form like you see in fish tanks with those diffuser stones) the process should be much more efficient.


If everything is enclosed, and the exit air from the bubbler is the main air feed for the chamber with the air pump… I imagine this could work pretty well

 

[Olfactory Nomad]

Yi-Xin Craft Incense: Sovereign

Energizing and clean blend of sandalwood and hojari frankincense.
Frankincense is actually difficult to capture in incense form. It's hard to process because of it's sticky nature and often comes across flat or charred.

I have maybe 18 varieties of frankincense that I use just with a ceramic heater for study and blends, and rarely find anything that does Frankincense justice in a stick form. Common Japanese sticks like Tennendo's or Minorien's Fu-in Frankincense fail to capture the actual presence of the resin.
These sticks are fresh, the sandalwood is clean, and the hojari in this stick in beyond one dimensional.
As a frankincense fiend, I'm quite pleased with this!
I'm enjoying it with a 23 year old white tea (Fu-ding baicha) today 😄

Can I ask "how" do you use your ceramic heater for resin? I have one but rarely use it for resin as I seem to always need to crank the heat up really high to get anything to melt and even then it takes a while. Is this normal? What's an average temp for melting frankincense? It shouldn't need to be so hot should it?

 

[Castingshadows]

I am very excited to do more experimenting with tinctures. I have a number that have been very useful in my blending experiments

Here is an idea I am planning to test out at some point down the road. I got the general idea from a Japanese patent… this is the rube Goldberg version.

The basic idea is to dry heat kinam and use forced air to bubble the smoke through some kind of liquid and infuse it attar style with the aroma. This allows you to make an attar at any temperature and without dealing with water and steam as a propellant. Also at home on your desktop!

Imagine the kind of fragrances you could make using this? This will definitely be part of my lineup for my home extractions. I can 3-D print any parts that don’t get too hot. The receiving liquid could be alcohol for that style of perfumery, sandalwood oil, even a plain Jane cultivated distilled kinam oil (I never thought I would utter words like that unironically in my lifetime) that would be more exotic with a layer of the bitter sweetness. I am not disparaging distilled kinam oils. I just think there are some very simple ones that are beautiful, but might benefit from a little more depth. Also, the distillates are less viscous and I think the more viscous the liquid in the receiver is the more difficult it will be to properly infuse it. With something low viscosity like alcohol (were very very fine bubbles can form like you see in fish tanks with those diffuser stones) the process should be much more efficient.


If everything is enclosed, and the exit air from the bubbler is the main air feed for the chamber with the air pump… I imagine this could work pretty wellView attachment 32470

So that’s a pretty commonly used “smoke infusion” method that a few of the perfumers in our community use. Russian Adam and Taha Syed does this a lot with their fragrances and it works nicely. You’ll need to use DPG though as it seems to be the best carrier. It’s pretty cool that you’ve created something on your own though as I think this method might be a bit different from what they use although I do know that there’s products you can buy now that are for this very purpose.

A lot of Michelin star chefs will use this method for capturing essences for their food. There’s an episode on Chef’s Table where a dessert chef does this with soil and smoke for a dessert that won him a Michelin star. It’s pretty incredible what you can do with this kind of tech and im
Not sure why more perfumers don’t utilize this extraction method. I’m excited to see what you do with this. It’s truly artisan perfumery at its finest.

Update us as you make this device I’d love to see it in action.