Incense Guide: How to Burn Stick Incense Well

Stick incense is not meant to burn with a flame. Light the tip, let it catch, then blow the flame out so the stick smolders, glowing at the end and giving off a thin line of fragrant smoke. Stand it upright in a holder that sits on a dish to catch the falling ash, set it away from anything that can catch fire, and stay in the room while it burns. Those habits follow the published guidance of the Japanese incense maker Nippon Kodo and the London Fire Brigade, and the reasons behind them start with what a stick of incense actually is. To browse, shop incense and holders.

A few terms first. Encyclopaedia Britannica defines incense as grains of resin (the hardened sap of certain trees), sometimes mixed with spices, that burn with a fragrant smell, and it names frankincense and myrrh as the chief resins historically used as incense. A stick is incense shaped into a thin rod. A cone is a small pyramid of the same material, and a coil is a long strand wound into a flat spiral. A holder, or stand, is whatever keeps a stick upright while it burns, and an incense burner is a bowl partly filled with fine ash that sticks are pushed into.

What a stick of incense is made of

Nippon Kodo, a Tokyo incense company that traces its craft to a tradition of more than 400 years, describes the making step by step. Natural gums and resins from precious woods and floral ingredients are loaded into vats and mixed with other organic raw materials. Machines then push that mixture through a cluster of tiny openings to extrude it, forcing it out as long strings that resemble spaghetti. The strings are cut to even lengths, laid in wooden frames and dried in a room where wooden shutters and windows control the heat and moisture. The sticks stay in the factory for several days until they harden.

The company's list of raw materials reads like a spice cabinet crossed with a lumberyard. The base ingredient is the ground bark of the tabu-no-ki tree (Machilus thunbergii), ground into powder. The fragrance comes from the woods and spices blended with it:

  • Aloeswood, also called agarwood. Nippon Kodo says the wood is white, light and odorless and develops its fragrance over time through natural processes, and that it is harvested in a limited area of Southeast Asia centered on Vietnam. It calls kyara the most refined form.
  • Sandalwood, whose bark is ashy white and smooth. Its leaves and bark have little scent, while the core of the trunk is strongly aromatic.
  • Borneol, crystal-like grains found inside the branches of an evergreen tree.
  • Clove and star anise, spices also used in food. Nippon Kodo notes that clove was once a rare commodity, valued for fragrance and for cooking, and that dried star anise fruit flavors liqueurs and snacks.

Finished sticks are not all the same thickness, a detail that matters when choosing a holder.

Where stick incense comes from

Shoyeido, an incense house founded in Kyoto around 1705, writes that incense is believed to have come into use in Japan along with Buddhism. It retells an account from the Nihon Shoki, one of Japan's oldest written histories, in which a large agarwood tree washed ashore on Awaji Island, and islanders, not knowing what it was, burned it in a furnace with firewood, and its smoke scented the air far away. Nippon Kodo credits Ganjin, a Buddhist priest from Tang dynasty China who reached Japan in 754, with bringing a thriving incense culture with him. Shoyeido adds that the technique of making incense sticks also came from China.

Incense in Japan did not stay in temples. Shoyeido writes that court nobles blended their own fragrances to scent their rooms and their clothes. Nippon Kodo writes that nobles of the Heian period (which it dates to the 8th to 12th centuries) created their own incense blends for different seasons and occasions, and that this is how Koh-Do, the Way of Incense, took shape. Shoyeido adds that by the Kamakura and Muromachi periods, centuries later, the practice of listening to incense was established: a Japanese phrase for appreciating the scent of aromatic wood with close, delicate attention. Britannica notes that in China incense was burned at festivals and processions to honor ancestors and household gods, and that in Japan it was taken into Shinto ritual as well.

How to light incense so it smolders

Nippon Kodo gives the method in one line: light the tip of the incense and blow out the flame. What is left is a glowing tip and a thin ribbon of smoke.

Then stand the stick up. Nippon Kodo describes two ways: in a stand set on a ceramic plate that catches the ash, or pushed upright into a container of ash. For an incense burner, the company says to fill the bowl about 80 percent full of ash, push sticks upright into it, and rest cones and coils on top of the ash. If the burner has a lid, the company says to leave it off while the incense burns, and to close it only if there is no danger of cutting off oxygen.

Burn time depends on the form and the maker. Shoyeido gives about 20 minutes as the burning time for the sticks in its Horin packages, and Nippon Kodo says its coil incense burns for about two hours. A stick is easiest to enjoy on a day with time to let it finish, the same planning that suits a new candle in the candle care guide.

Sticks, cones and coils, side by side

Nippon Kodo matches each form of incense to a different room. The card below sets its descriptions beside the way the company says to hold each one.

Form How it burns, per Nippon Kodo Room it suits, per Nippon Kodo What holds it
Stick Burns evenly; a mild fragrance spreads steadily A private room, for one person A stand on a ceramic plate, or upright in a bowl of ash
Cone An intense fragrance in a short time A large room, such as a family room or entry Sits on top of the ash in a burner
Coil Burns much longer, about 2 hours A family room Sits on top of the ash in a burner

Holders and ash

A holder has two jobs: keep the stick upright and keep its ash off the table. As a stick smolders, the burned end turns to a fine gray ash that falls away, so whatever the holder sits on has to catch it.

The 9-hole brass holder takes a modular approach (shop the brass incense holder). It is a small brass piece about three quarters of an inch tall and three quarters of an inch wide, made to sit in any bowl or plate, so that the dish below becomes the ash catcher. Its nine holes come in three diameters, 2.5 millimeters, 1.75 millimeters and 1.5 millimeters. That spread is the practical point: a thicker stick fits the widest hole, and a slim stick stands straighter in the narrowest one instead of leaning. Before lighting, test the stick in each size and use the hole that holds it upright without forcing it.

The dish matters as much as the holder. The London Fire Brigade says to keep candles and incense in heat-resistant holders placed on a stable surface, and Nippon Kodo specifies a ceramic plate under a stand. A small ceramic dish or a shallow bowl under the brass holder answers both.

Where to burn it

The London Fire Brigade's advice covers candles, incense sticks and oil burners together:

  • Never unattended. Never leave incense sticks burning unattended, and put them out when leaving the room and especially before bed.
  • Clear of anything that can catch fire. Keep incense away from curtains, papers, furniture and clothes.
  • A heat-resistant holder on a stable surface. Keep incense in heat-resistant holders placed on a stable surface.

Nippon Kodo adds a placement rule of its own: set the incense in the center or a corner of the room, not directly next to you.

Fresh air is the other half. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's general guidance for improving indoor air is to bring in more outdoor air, by opening windows and doors and running window or attic fans when the weather permits, and to use bathroom or kitchen fans that vent outdoors. Applied to incense, that general advice points to an open window in the room while the stick burns, when the weather allows.

Tea, translated into smoke

Mariage Frères, the tea house founded in Paris in 1854, brings its tea vocabulary to incense. Each of the two incense gift chests below holds 50 sticks and a silver-plated holder, and each is described on its product page as a tea-inspired incense.

Thé au Tibet, French for tea in Tibet, comes as saffron-yellow sticks, with a fragrance described through precious woods and snow-flower honey (shop Thé au Tibet incense). Thé sous les Nuages, tea beneath the clouds, comes as black sticks with a white-floral fragrance meant to evoke tea shoots and plantations in morning mist (shop Thé sous les Nuages incense).

Both follow the method above: one stick in the included holder, the holder on a stable, heat-resistant surface, a ventilated room, and someone nearby while it burns. The house's black teas are read tin by tin in the Mariage Frères black tea guide, and the way tea reached Europe is told in the history of tea article. The full range is in the Mariage Frères collection.

A chest of incense with a holder and a small dish makes a complete gift for a new home, alongside the ideas in the housewarming gift guide, and more gifts, sorted by person, are in the gift guide. Candles and other home scents are gathered in the candles and scents collection.

Incense is a slow fire on purpose

Every step in burning incense well serves one idea: the flame is only the starter. A stick of bark powder, wood and resin gives its fragrance in a slow, steady smolder, so the work is to protect that smolder. Blowing out the flame begins it, a holder sized to the stick keeps it upright, a dish keeps its ash, and an open window and a watchful eye keep the room safe while it works. The Japanese phrase listening to incense fits that slow fire well: a smoldering stick rewards the same patience that gave its wood its scent in the first place.

The shop is at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, where visitors can ask staff questions, and orders ship from theambrosianpantry.com.

Sources & Further Reading

Back to blog

Shop this story

From the Incense collection

Shop all Incense
Shop this story (3)

Keep reading

More from The Pantry Dispatch