natural incense sticks

I grew up on a small farm in New Zealand producing tea tree essential oil.It was a beautiful place, where the sun burned with a benevolent heat. My father had but once ambition; to produce a top class line of incense beating any other incense traders, retailer, fragrance nut or incense lovers from any country. He was obsessed with this end and had all our lines sampled up to ten generations, each generation having more than twenty formulations. Our aromatherapy oils were tested in many nations, in different weather patterns by ardent incense geeks. They helped him develop an exquisite, an soothing incense experience which was simply a world class product. 

 The natural incense stick research panel, started in the year 1956, soon led us to the following conclusions:

      1.   The Indian  natural incense stick industry, supplies upto 60% of the world incense market, but often of lower quality products.

      2.   Incense manufacture is a traditional cottage industry of rural India, which, because of that very nature, is exploitative of the poor souls who work in the incense industry. This he wished to change at once by implementing a fair trade and organic policy only for his botanicals.

Organic herbal incense is as old as time itself. The early Indian and Greek civilizations used natural incense as a primary ingredient for their sacrificial rituals, and its manufacture was nothing less than a sacred art. Used to counteract dnasty smells and dispel djinns, incense was said both to manifest the presence of the divine (fragrance being a divine attribute) and to make the gods happy

Historically, the chief substances used as natural herbal incense were such resins as frankincense and myrrh, along with pleasant smelling woods and barks, seeds, roots, herbs and flowers.

Incense has been a facet of religious rites worldwide since the earliest times. Even earlier records, the Vedas of India, mention its properties as early as 6,000 BCE. In ancient days, smelly woods such as bergamot and neroli, and essential oils extracted from various flowers and spices, were offered in the sacrificial fire or dhuni for the pleasure of the deities.