What makes Dhuni incense the worlds finest?
- Entirely hand rolled in India, all ingredients picked by hand
- Free from glues, chemicals, artificial ingredients
- Blended by a master incense maker
- Halmaddi based in the traditional style
- Voted one of the world’s finest premiere incense by ORS
- Beautifully packaged
Indian incense is a dying tradition, we’re sorry to say. Where once it was relatively commonplace for herbs, resins and flowers to be dried and ground, before being burnt for their fragrance and devotional properties, such things are now on the way out. Cheap chemical alternatives, full of toxic materials, are replacing traditional incense in India, and the world at large.
Dhuni was created in an attempt to celebrate one of the last traditional incense masters in India, working in the old style. His creations are SO extraordinary, so beautiful, so resonant of a bygone world, that we felt compelled to start our small business to try to bring his creations to a handful of incense aficionados yoga practitioners, and India lovers in the West.
A bit about Halmaddi, from renowned incense historian Bhalendra Sunduram
“Mattipal or Halmaddi is a rare ingredient which forms the basis of the pleasing ‘sticky’ quality one finds in traditional hand-rolled Indian agarbatti. It’s a earth coloured liquid resin drawn from the Ailanthus triphysa tree and is, for anyone who has seen it, quite unusual looking stuff. Mattipal is molasses-like when it is fresh and hardens to a brittle resin with a distinctive balsamic smell when it ages. Some incense masters mix it with honey, which is a combination that makes for an unforgettable olfactory experience.”
(taken from interview with Bhalendra, during the 5th International Conference on Ayurveda. Bangalore, June 2012)
We collect ours from a range of locations, including the wet evergreen climax forests of the western Ghats, from the Konkan, North Kanara and Karnataka southwards to Travancore. It flowers in India between February and March, fruiting around the following April or May.
Some of our reviews on Olfactory Rescue Service, the world’s top incense reviewers
Users of Dhuni incense already realize that they’re becoming very close to the premiere connoisseur Indian incense imprint and if these new incenses are any indication they’re getting better with every new scent.
A remarkable incense and well worth the price (actually it is dirt cheap compared to most Japanese scents, I am clueless as to how they manage to do this).
If I was to recommend one of the many “vanilla” nag champas on the market, it would have to be this one as it’s easily the most authentic Nag Champa I’ve come across in the modern age
