Today I am going to be reviewing Shoyeido Five Clouds incense sticks.
Table of Contents
The product description says:
Five Clouds’ stirring fragrance of fine agarwood inspires thought and invigorates spirit.
The fragrance profile supposedly consists of primarily kyara, agarwood, and sandalwood.
The Chinese have a saying which says that one needs to accumulate 3 lifetimes of good virtue before encountering true kynam (kyara), and 8 lifetimes of good virtue to be able to use and appreciate it.
Review
This agarwood incense is quite nice.
It’s not the ‘electric blue’ kind of scent like their Translucent Path kyara incense sticks. Instead, it is a slightly warmer scent. The sandalwood and spices seem to cloud the bitterness of the agarwood, but not in a sweet or cloying way. Some sour notes are detectable as well. It seems fairly well balanced.
It has a sort of airy tranquility to it and certainly has introspective qualities.
Unfortunately, I really don’t think there is a lot of kyara in this particular incense blend. You can smell a bit of it’s deep composure, but it’s not particularly upfront.
The agarwood seems mid-grade to me, as it has an inherent sour quality at times. The way they blended this incense seems as though they tried enhance the smell of the mid-grade agarwood. It’s really quite nice, and I would love to burn this again, but honestly, there are other agarwood blends I enjoy more.
