Superior Chin-Zhou Aloeswood - 8" Stick Incense - 100% Natural - F058T

What a wonderful, affordable treat! I know this price might not strike most as a bargain, BUT this is ~no~ cheap charcoal dipped mass produced incense! If you haven't heard of aloeswood, aka agarwood, indeed these sticks are a bargain for the price--high in natural resin content and quality. If you _are_ familiar with agarwood, I would compare this stick in quality to that of the loose "Agarwood Cambodi No.1" chips offered by Al Haramain. Excellent!For those who know higher end Japanese agarwoods (Baieido, Shoyeido, etc), this incense has _no_ herbal softeners or fillers, and thus may not ~seem~ as "subtle" as products from Japanese master incense blenders. Please consider the pure scent offered here! If you know Shoyeido's Premium line, Or Baieido's agarwoods, this scent will be familiar. No oils have been added here to tickle your nose--no sawdust, no sandalwood or juniper fillers, nothing too sweet or bitter. I vouch for the natural smell of these sticks based upon my own experience with this particular wood. As I can, if you have a working ordinary sense of smell you too will be able to percieve top, middle, and base notes from the natural agarwood itself, and not have to wonder what has been added (the scent of the binder is virtually indetectable).The scent of agarwood... what a difficult thing to describe to someone who has never smelled it! It is like trying to explain how a rose smells to a person who has never smelled one...how to begin? First, disappointment for some--it won't make you high! At least you won't be hallucinating or floating out of your head mad with delusions. If you know how good pure sandalwood is _sweet_, this is how good agarwood is _rich_, this specific incense has a scent I can describe only as rich, stark, sharp, subtle...there are elements that remind me of the oakiness of a fine merlot, the depth of true musk, the verity of true ambergris. Yet unique, natural and original!If you can recall the basenotes of a favorite dark spicy or musky old perfume, _there_ is the similarity to agarwood--but no cloying. At its heart, it is a smell I would associate with Autumn, although I often enjoy this scent at special times year round. It is _not_ a generic smokey campfire smell...anyone with an average nose for perfume, wine, flowers or freshly turned soil (you farmers out there) should enjoy this special incense. I look forward to comparing others in this line with other agarwoods I have tried when I save the $. It should be fun!And for those still possessed with trepidation..."Superior Chin-Zhou Aloeswood" does ~NOT~ smell like skunk, poop, too-strong-florals, detergent, bad perfume, too-woody-smoky-campfire, or 99.9% of other incense commonly available today.If you have the chance, try this! It really is something special and rare!

Flat scent and breaks very easy

I don't have time to write the review this incense deserves but I'll just say this is *excellent* classic aloeswood. I've burned countless varieties of high end Japanese blends and this is better than a lot of them. And I love that it's just the wood. It doesn't have cassia or musk or sandalwood, etc thrown in, and it doesn't need it. If you are interested in high end incense, maybe you've tried some Japanese stuff, this will give you a solid understanding of what aloeswood is doing in other blends. Chin-Zhou has cleansed my olfactory palette. I can't wait to try the higher grades. I am so grateful for this product, thank you.

The scent smells good but there is no "end" to the incense stick, so it is difficult to place the stick into an incense holder and the stick is very fragile and breaks easily.

Of course this incense breaks easily: there's no stinky bamboo core to hold it together, so handle it carefully. Because it's made of wood (not perfume-dipped punk or charcoal) it has a certain woodiness (in the same way that Dom Perignon champagne has a certain hint of yeastiness to it).Aloeswood (a.k.a. agarwood, eaglewood, gharuwood, jinko, et al.) is the most expensive of incense materials. I just found some of the highest grade ("Kyara") aloeswood online from a reputable US-based incense vendor: it lists at $887.30 for slightly less than 5 grams, but it's marked-down to about $710, which works out to about $142 per gram, the weight of a paper clip. This incense makes me happy because I know that I'll never smell $142/g aloeswood.If you're not familiar with aloeswood (called "jinko" in Japanese), I'd suggest working your way through Japanese incense until reaching the $40-50 per 100-stick price point, then you'll have an experiential baseline on which to base an empirical evaluation of this incense. The somewhat standard 5 1/2" stick burns for 20-25 minutes. The price of this incense works out to about $0.35 per 20 minutes (I did the math). It's remarkably clean and pure for that price point.It's only because I don't feel that I have the fully-developed nose to objectively evaluate this incense that I gave it 4 stars. What I know for sure it that I like it and will buy it again when the box I just opened begins to run out. I am happy to have it among the 100+ Tibetan, Chinese, and Japanese incenses in my collection which includes various jinko-based incenses including Shoyeido's White Cloud; Minorien's Fu-in Aloeswood; Da Xin Tang's Cloud Song; Gyokushodo's Jinko Kojurin and jinko Denpu; Baeido's Tobiume, Kaiun Koh, Syukohkoku, and Tokusen Syukohkoku; and a few others. Like fine wine, good incense usually has a learning curve to its appreciation as opposed to the carbonated softdrinks and artificially-scented incenses that please the casual consumer.It's taken years to work my way up from $0.10 to $0.50 sticks that last 20-25 minutes, the duration of most commonly-marketed Japanese incense sticks ("senko"). These sticks burn for twice as long as most Japanese senko, so I break 'em in half for a 20-25 minute burn time, but I do it carefully.

I thought I was getting a little step up in aloeswood and hoped for the price this would be that. No way. Boring at least. I have to burn two or three sticks just to smell something / anything with this "Superior" (Grade 3). It reminds me of very cheap joss sticks that have little scent. I agree with gandalph's review on this - better to go outside and burn some brush and avoid wasting your money on this crap.