Wow yes you guys introduced me to beautiful incense and now i get the rundown from the man himself! Thank you David and Tezumi for all that you guys do!!!
Here, we also use a cup of uncooked rice instead of incense ash. After several uses, when the rice has collected a lot of ashes, we replace it with a new cup of rice. The old rice can be washed to remove the ashes and then fed to chickens or used for something else.
This was incredibly informative. The Japanese are very good at mystifying their traditikns, making them seem impossible to do without doing them from birth. I'm going to try monko, just have to wait for everything to arrive
Thanks for the information! Here in Europe, the market is mostly of indian incense sticks, which vary on quality as well as aromas, with unfortunately mixes of aromas that do not make sense to the European preferences. Except of the first aromas you mentioned, does the Japanese Culture holds other aromas as single aromas that are traditionally accepted? Thansk, whether or not you answer this question, I consider already your video a luxus.
Sometimes you'll find single note powders such as anise, but most incense is blended in Japan, apart from raw woods. Instead, the complexity within these raw woods is explored, e.g. breaking down aloeswood into six subcategories
If you're just using the ash for incense sticks, you can just stir the fresh ash into the rest of it or skim it off the top. If you're mixing it in, over time, the ash will begin to smell a bit of burnt incense which is when it is time to replace the ash. For soradaki (heating neriko or inko) the spent incense and charcoal can also be stirred into the ash and the ash can be reused a few times or used for burning sticks. If you're using the ash for monko (incense ceremony style) then fresh ash is required as you need the ash to be as odourless as possible to best enjoy aloeswood or kyara. Ash used for monko can then be reused for soradaki or sticks
