page_title: Incense
section_title: Production
hierarchical_section_title: Incense / Production
caption_attribution_description: English: Charcoal coated Incense sticks without scented
context_page_description: Incense is aromatic biotic material that releases fragrant smoke when burned. The term is used for either the material or the aroma. Incense is used for aesthetic reasons, aromatherapy, meditation, and ceremony. It may also be used as a simple deodorant or insect repellent.
  Incense is composed of aromatic plant materials, often combined with essential oils. The forms taken by incense differ with the underlying culture, and have changed with advances in technology and increasing number of uses.
  Incense can generally be separated into two main types: "indirect-burning" and "direct-burning". Indirect-burning incense is not capable of burning on its own, and requires a separate heat source. Direct-burning incense is lit directly by a flame and then fanned or blown out, leaving a glowing ember that smoulders and releases a smoky fragrance. Direct-burning incense is either a paste formed around a bamboo stick, or a paste that is extruded into a stick or cone shape.
context_section_description: The raw materials are powdered and then mixed together with a binder to form a paste, which, for direct burning incense, is then cut and dried into pellets. Incense of the Athonite Orthodox Christian tradition is made by powdering frankincense or fir resin, mixing it with essential oils. Floral fragrances are the most common, but citrus such as lemon is not uncommon. The incense mixture is then rolled out into a slab approximately 1 cm thick and left until the slab has firmed. It is then cut into small cubes, coated with clay powder to prevent adhesion, and allowed to fully harden and dry. In Greece this rolled incense resin is called 'Moskolibano', and generally comes in either a pink or green colour denoting the fragrance, with pink being rose and green being jasmine.
  Certain proportions are necessary for direct-burning incense:
  Oil content: an excess of oils may prevent incense from smoldering effectively. Resinous materials such as myrrh and frankincense are typically balanced with "dry" materials such as wood, bark and leaf powders.
  Oxidizer quantity: Too little oxidizer in gum-bound incense may prevent the incense from igniting, while too much will cause the incense to burn too quickly, without producing fragrant smoke.
  Binder: Water-soluble binders such as "makko" ensure that the incense mixture does not crumble when dry, dilute the mixture.
  Mixture density: Incense mixtures made with natural binders must not be combined with too much water in mixing, or over-compressed while being formed, which would result in either uneven air distribution or undesirable density in the mixture, causing the incense to burn unevenly, too slowly, or too quickly.
  Particulate size: The incense mixture has to be well pulverized with similarly sized particulates. Uneven and large particulates result in uneven burning and inconsistent aroma production when burned.
  "Dipped" or "hand-dipped" direct-burning incense is created by dipping "incense blanks" made of unscented combustible dust into any suitable kind of essential or fragrance oil. These are often sold in the United States by flea-market and sidewalk vendors who have developed their own styles. This form of incense requires the least skill and equipment to manufacture, since the blanks are pre-formed in China or South East Asia.
  Incense mixtures can be extruded or pressed into shapes. Small quantities of water are combined with the fragrance and incense base mixture and kneaded into a hard dough. The incense dough is then pressed into shaped forms to create cone and smaller coiled incense, or forced through a hydraulic press for solid stick incense. The formed incense is then trimmed and slowly dried. Incense produced in this fashion has a tendency to warp or become misshapen when improperly dried, and as such must be placed in climate-controlled rooms and rotated several times through the drying process.
  Traditionally, the bamboo core of cored stick incense is prepared by hand from Phyllostachys heterocycla cv. pubescens since this species produces thick wood and easily burns to ashes in the incense stick. In a process known as "splitting the foot of the incense stick", the bamboo is trimmed to length, soaked, peeled, and split in halves until the thin sticks of bamboo have square cross sections of less than 3mm. This process has been largely replaced by machines in modern incense production.
  In the case of cored incensed sticks, several methods are employed to coat the sticks cores with incense mixture:
  Paste rolling: A wet, malleable paste of incense mixture is first rolled into a long, thin coil, using a paddle. Then, a thin stick is put next to the coil and the stick and paste are rolled together until the stick is centered in the mixture and the desired thickness is achieved. The stick is then cut to the desired length and dried.
  Powder-coating: Powder-coating is used mainly to produce cored incense of either larger coil (up to 1 meter in diameter) or cored stick forms. A bundle of the supporting material (typically thin bamboo or sandalwood slivers) is soaked in water or a 
caption: Raw Charcoal Incense Sticks
exif: {"Image Make": "motorola", "Image Model": "Moto Z2 Play", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "albus-user 8.0.0 OPSS27.76-12-25-11 8 release-keys", "Image DateTime": "2019:01:05 15:10:51", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "246", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "GPS GPSMapDatum": "WGS-84", "Image GPSInfo": "2500", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2632", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "53403", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/119", "EXIF FNumber": "17/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "64", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2019:01:05 15:10:51", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2019:01:05 15:10:51", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "689/100", "EXIF ApertureValue": "76553/50000", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "-1", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "76553/50000", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "107/25", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4032", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3024", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "2470", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Soft", "EXIF Sharpness": "Soft"}