I had received some requests on how to actually go about making incense sticks, and there were comments on my earlier post that I had not show how the incense dough was made prior to extrusion, and how I managed to get such straight sticks and scale up my production. The truth is, I’ve not been… [Read More…]
Agarwood in Microscopy
oops! long overdue articles as usual. beeen reallly really busy studying and researching on tea pots and making incense sticks but i’ve not forgotten about writing. Sometimes, when people handle agarwood, they are seen pouring over the piece of wood with a handheld magnifier. What are they actually looking for?… Here are some tips…. [Read More…]
Alshareef II – Journey to the Heart of Oud
Ever since a few years ago, Oud had become the buzz word in western perfumery, all the major western perfume houses now carry different “oud” products. I had friends that would ask me from time to time to check out this “oud spray” or that “oud eau de parfum”, and I would respond like……. [Read More…]
Patina development of Yixing pots
Every yixing pot collector probably would have heard of the legend of seasoning yixing pots, that the longer you use it, one day, by just adding hot water to the pot, you can get tea! It is a myth and a huge misconception, partially due to poor translations of chinese texts. The original historical phrase… [Read More…]
Bad incense or tea day
Recently I came upon a post from someone on a forum that he had a bad tea day despite having followed the exact same procedures in the preparation, from the water quality, to the boiling, to the pot, to the quantity of tea leaves in weight, same steep duration etc, and the tea was not… [Read More…]
Kyarazen Handmade incense sticks
Having had purchased and sampled and studied countless incenses from all sorts of origins over the years, it soon became a personal challenge to create incenses that are both artistically inspired, and olfactorily able to match up to commercially available premium incenses. Painting images for others by the scent of a burning incense stick is a personal… [Read More…]
Happy Year of the Goat!
Happy Lunar New Year to all readers! Wishing everyone good health, prosperity, wellbeing and lots of excellent olfactory joys in the Year of the Goat!
Kyarazen is on Instagram!
although KZ is not really on social media, I had created an instagram account just for the fun of it and so that readers/friends can get regular updates on what Kz’s up to. you can find kyarazen here at : http://instagram.com/aloeswoods/
How the Structure of Water affects tea
We all know that the dissolved ions in water, i.e. iron, sodium, potassium, chlorides, carbonates etc affect the taste of the water. But apart from the usual chemical composition of water, there’s another lesser discussed aspect that also affect water and its taste, the physical structure of water! Water’s chemical formula is H2O, which means… [Read More…]
Wabi Sabi and the concept of Wu Wei
I was inspired to write this article when I had the fortune of viewing, and handling a 供春 “Gong Chun” Yixing pot made by Jiang An Qing (1920s). No pictures though, in respect of the owner’s preferences. Amongst the opinions of high end Yixing collectors in the world, no one could make a Gong Chun… [Read More…]
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