Shoyeido is a 300-year old traditional Japanese incense company, established in 1705, producing what is widely considered to be the highest quality, finest natural incense in the world. Without a supporting core stick, Shoyeido incense delivers the pure essence of the ingredients, maintaining a fine balance between density and rigidness for handling. Shoyeido is one of the few traditional incense manufacturers in Japan, who continues to purchase ingredients themselves, produce incense by hand, and distribute it with sincere care to their customers for enhanced enjoyment.
As it is made with such care and contains the finest natural ingredients, Shoyeido's incense matures and improves with time, like fine wine. The scent becomes deeper and more mellow, reflecting the subtlety and refinement for which Shoyeido is known.
The ingredients are finely ground and carefully mixed with a powdered natural binding material, "Tabu-ko". Twenty to fifty kinds of herbs and spices are precisely blended with pure water, quickly shaped, and dried very slowly. Understanding the quality and the characteristics of the ingredients is essential. Even the same grade of a bushel of an herb will emit a delicately different fragrance from another. From lot to lot, master blenders make subtle adjustments to retain the consistent fragrance of a particular incense. They consider the process to be an artistic endeavor rather than mere "production". Human sensitivity is highly-valued for Shoyeido's incense making.
The blending process requires an enormous amount of skill. When blending with natural ingredients, the quality, balance and ratios of each element are critical. The slightest variation in amount or quality of any component can dramatically change the resulting fragrance. The amount of moisture, along with drying-time and production methods, can also strongly influence the scent. Shoyeido has been refining these techniques for 300 years — ensuring nothing goes to waste in this detailed production process.
The density of a single stick of incense matters significantly. Fineness or coarseness of ground ingredients affect its burning temperature. Natural incense needs to breathe. If it is too dense, it burns at a lower temperature which changes the scent. On the other hand, if it is too loose, it burns at a higher temperature and the fragrance may be diminished. People at Shoyeido are meticulously involved with every detail of the process of incense making; from the ingredients to the manufacturing, and to the refined and artistic packaging. Only in this way, Shoyeido knows, the purity of incense can be enjoyed.
