Green Tara Tibetan Incense Review
With all of the the thunderstorms we have had in this area lately it is a perfect time to light up one of my favorite incense blends and hopefully convert a few of you into becoming fans as well. The incense in question is Green Tara and it is produced in Kathmandu Nepal by Mandala Arts & Incense.
We carry several scents by Mandala Arts & Incense and the packaging is unique and very attractive. A very heavy, fibrous paper is wrapped around 14 dhoop style sticks and sealed on both ends with a wax seal. It always seems a shame to break that seal as it was obviously placed there by hand with a great deal of care. It seems even more of a shame when you tear or damage the Bodhi leaf that each packet is decorated with. I have no idea how they manage to place such a delicate, spidery leaf on the packaging in the first place, but it is a very unique and interesting decoration.
I mentioned that we carry several scents by Mandala Arts & Incense and the main reason I mentioned that is because this particular scent is the only one that “bleeds” into the paper it is wrapped in. I am not sure why that is as the sticks themselves are always very dry and the scent never seems affected. I just wanted to give a brief note to the phenomenon in case you decided to try it and had questions about why the packaging seems less pristine than other scents from the same family.
Inside the wrapping paper a string is wrapped around the incense stick bundle very tightly. I suggest a little extra care in extracting a stick as I have broken more than one of them in the process. It doesn’t really matter I suppose as they are a dhoop style incense without a bamboo core and you can just as easily place the two broken halves upright in sand and burn them both. However, that does mean double the amount of smoke.
I burn these sticks in a traditional fashion. That is to say I insert them vertically into a small bowl of sand. I prefer to burn incense this way as I personally believe it gives a more pure rendition of the scent because of the lack of “pre-heating” the next small section to be burned as the ember moves along the stick. That is my personal preference and belief, your experience may differ.
Now, on to the lighting! The sticks themselves are very dry and very unlike Durbars and Champas that feel slightly damp to the touch. So I thought that when I applied flame to the tip it would fairly whoosh into flame. That was not the case. In fact it was more like lighting charcoal as no flame ever presented itself to be blown out. Instead the tip glows after a moment or two under a match or lighter and then remains glowing. Very simple and a little surprising.
The scent of this particular stick is very woody and smoky, yet extremely pleasant. To be honest the first thing that came to my mind upon smelling the smoke was a campfire. Not a cough inducing campfire from pine logs or green, damp wood, but a campfire from well seasoned oak or hickory. This would be a wonderful accessory for those of you with a gas fireplace. You could have the flames as well as the woody, smoky scent that should go along with it.
There is a fair amount of sandalwood in this formulation and every now and then you can detect a very slight note of it. It is a great base scent for this particular blend as it adds just the right warmth underneath the sharper notes of the rest of the herbs and spices. A similar scent would be white cedar, but this stick is not nearly as powerful as cedar. Everyone here agrees that it is a woodsy, smoky, forest-like scent that has quite a bit of depth when you concentrate on it.
I would recommend this scent for those with gas fireplaces, burning outside on cool fall evenings or even during a barbecue. I don’t think you will be disappointed at all with this scent and I am sure you can find many more wonderful uses and situations where it would fit perfectly.
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