Gyokushodo - Saidaikoh 1 stick, learning the profile of the stick, as it is actually not Vietnamese wood the use, but "Vietnamese Tani" which is Indonesian wood that has a profile similar to Vietnam and Indonesia, since the wood is from Indo. I sat in my bed with my bowl and incense holder, lit the stick and put it in, a full 5.5 inch one, usually I would actually snap a 5.5inch stick if I was doing, what I like to call, "Stick Kodo ", basically just intently listening to the stick and doing nothing else to get a better idea of the complexities, nuances and profile of the stick, so that when I burn them in the background they will have a stronger scent as I have learned the profile and its kinda like doing a gym session for your nose for a particular scent.
Anyway, it started off as a very woody, sweet, and musky scent, as the stick burned it was giving me notes of a mild yellow curry (this note strongly reminds me of the premium range of normal aloeswood sticks from Shoyeido), musk again, and aloeswood notes, oudiness, sweet and sour, red-ish berries, nice, relaxing pops of aloeswood resin bubbles as if you are burning the raw aloeswood. The stick progresses in a very woody, musky way, and then you get hit with a nice dry sandalwood note, as the stick burns you get a creamy note from the sandalwood, it is a spectacular sandalwood quality, with also some butteriness. These sandalwood notes would end up interplaying with the, sweet/sour notes of the aloeswood, and eventually the aloeswood and sandalwood creaminess would combine to create a creamy chocolate, the cream coming from sandalwood and the chocolate-y-ness coming from the aloeswood, with some fruity undertones. As the stick nears the ned of its life, you pick up on notes of vanilla, strong woody, resinous notes that, pop, pop. pop, into existence a nice chocolate, vanilla, fruity undertone, note with the sandalwoods creaminess and butteriness making the chocolate nice and creamy. The sticks last wisps of breath (smoke) was of a woody, vanillic, choco, red berry, woody, resinous and sandalwood note.
*This part is off topic lol, no need to read it if you dont want to* I put 8 sticks into an empty tube that held another incense, prof. incense ambon, but there was only 3 and a half left in that tube, and there was no aroma at room temp with those sticks and they could fit into an old premium shoyeido box, so I put them in there and these ones into a long incense tube, now there is 7. The more I do this with these sticks the more I will understand them, and the quicker too, I went through a lot of Tennendo Tensei with using 4 sticks while doing stuff on the PC when I could have just done this and would have only ended up needing 2 sticks in the living room for a strong scent in a shorter amount of time and less wastefulness of sticks. I cant do that with the Gyokushodo Traditional sticks I get as the vendor I get them from only stocks small amounts as the majority of the public only buy incense that is in their acceptable price range, and most people dont buy boxes of incense with 150 sticks a box for £28.99 to £80 and £90 for 100... so have to treat this range with good respect as once I get the Umeshoin (which I tried in the sample pack and was BLOWN AWAY) 100 sticks for £95-96 is a lot of money, and I will be using 60 of those sticks in that tube for "Stick Kodo" (listening/appreciating the incense) and 40 for lighting in the living room while on the PC.
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