Borneo Camphor, sometimes called Borneol Camphor is a pale, straw colored resin from the Dryobalanops aromatica tree. It is an evergreen that can reach heights of more than 120 feet. The Japanese refer to this tree as the hon-sho and the sacred camphor tree at the Hachiman shrine in the Kagoshima district of Japan is more than 1,200 years old.

Regular readers will no doubt be aware that I am not the biggest fan of Hem incense. The fact that it is charcoal based and is (probably) dipped in fragrance oil rather than being made from finely ground ingredients gives it a characteristic odor that I find very distracting on occasion. Sometimes though, Hem creates something that defies my expectations and can truly be classed as something special.

The distinction is important because white sage plays a tremendous role in Native American rituals as well as various Wiccan and Pagan spells and rituals for cleansing everything from space to Athames, crystals and more. The cleansing properties of white sage are well documented in hundreds of works and I am not about to argue with the wisdom of the ages. So with that in mind, and a trip to the Native American festival in Fort Walton Florida where plenty of white sage was burned still fresh in my memory, lets see what Hem has to offer with this stick.

Koala Bears. That is the first thing that pops into my head when I hear the word eucalyptus. The second, after a moments thought, is some terrible cough drop that trumpeted how it was made with eucalyptus. Mercifully I have forgotten the brand. Anyway, Hem offers a eucalyptus incense that is actually surprisingly good.

I wasn’t expecting a great deal from this cedar incense stick by Hem after I experienced a pretty bad failure on their part with a cinnamon scented stick. I mean, how hard is it to get the smell of cinnamon wrong? To show you how hard that is to do, I will follow this up with a short post explaining how to take ordinary ground cinnamon and water to create your own cinnamon incense cones.

When I was about eight years old I would while away hours in the summertime by sitting in the uppermost branches of an old pine tree and daydreaming. This would of course terrify my poor mother because the sorts of pine trees we have here in the south are known for falling over due to things like wind, no wind, excessive moisture, too little moisture, birds landing in them, etc.

Towards the goal of enjoying the smell of Cinnabon anytime I want I have tried many incense sticks that claim to be cinnamon. I have found that “cinnamon inspired” might be a better term for them unfortunately. So I was excited to try out the cinnamon from Nippon-Kodo’s Morning Star Line.

I am not a fan of drinks that are boiled water and various leaves or beans. This means that I don’t care for coffee or tea and I get my caffeine from a can. However that does not mean that I don’t enjoy the scent of coffee or tea leaves. I am especially fond of Captain Picard’s favorite, Earl Grey. Just not the actual prepared and ready to be consumed version. So when it comes to tea scented incense, I can be very picky.