Oud Kathmandu

Himalayan Agarwood oil isn’t easy to find these days. This batch came from a dealer working the northern reaches of Nepal, where the trees grow slower and the resin runs darker for it. Nutty, deep, woody, with a streak of chocolate running through — and underneath it, that raw lift agarwood has before anyone’s touched it with anything else. It’s become one of the most requested oils in the Oud collection, and it’s easy to see why.

On the banks of the Bagmati River in Kathmandu sits Pashupatinath, one of the oldest Shiva temples in the world, older than the city around it. The gates open before sunrise, and from that first hour the air doesn’t really clear — it’s incense and chanting from morning puja straight through to the evening aarti, priests moving flame in slow circles while the crowd claps and sings along. It’s one of those places where you could feasibly go to and imagine travelling 1000 years earlier and the place being exactly the same.

Price range: £14.95 through £49.95 Plus VAT

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100g

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Additional information
FAQs

Weight	N/A
Dimensions	N/A
Grade	Connoisseur
Scent Family	Sacred Woods
Profile	Agarwood
Notes	Dark, Resinous, Smoky
Mood	Ethereal, Grounding, Sacred
Release Date	9/2021

What are the benefits of hand-rolling versus extruder machines? +

We work in small batches, which lets us use rarer materials. We don't make anywhere near the volume a machine production run would need to be profitable — and honestly, that was never the goal. Engaging skilled people to hand-roll beautiful, unique incense in small batches was always more appealing to us. After 140 years of making incense like this we've never considered doing it any other way.

How long does each stick burn for? +

Between 30–60 minutes, depending on the incense — most are ~45 minutes. Because our sticks are hand-rolled and use natural materials rather than machine-extruded ones, thickness varies slightly from batch to batch — which means burn time does too. As a rough guide, thinner or more delicate blends burn faster; denser or resin-rich blends burn longer. If you're curious about a specific fragrance, please get in touch.

What is the difference between your different grades - Classic, Absolute and Connoisseur? +

Classic is a great starting point if you're new to incense — lowest oil content, simple, pleasant fragrances suited to everyday and ritual burning. Absolute roughly doubles the oil content and widens the range considerably, including single-batch incenses we don't repeat once the ingredients run out — this is where you start to explore and take incense more seriously, and it tends to have the broadest appeal. Connoisseur triples the oil content and leans further into the fragrance itself, for when you want to smell something truly divine — more adventurous, and it can be polarising as a result. Mostly small-batch and limited edition, with a handful of permanent fragrances.

All three ranges are beautiful in their own way — it comes down to taste. You might prefer a Classic to anything in Connoisseur, and that's worth exploring. As you move up through the grades, price naturally increases too, simply because of the materials involved.

What does "temple grade" mean? +

"Temple grade" means our incense is made fit for worship. Some incense brands reuse flowers already offered in worship - great for recycling but some consider this unfit to be used in worship as it has already been used. Whilst an unofficial certification, we hold ourselves to a defined level. The result: a cleaner burn, spiritually pure and truer scent than mass-market incense, no worship required to notice the difference.