Harmal is almost never ever burned without admixtures:

Persian style:

100gr peganum harmala seeds (esphand)
5gr Golpar = flower wing/feather seeds (sometimes erroneously called (holy ghost) angelica seed)
35gr frankincense tears
15gr earth from your garden



mix all ingredients and you can make a long ladle from copper wire, which you then lay with aluminum foil and just hold it over a gas stove flame until the seed crackle and emit smoalk

Arab style:
100gr peganum harmala seeds
25gr sweet myrrh resin(Opopanax)
25gr benzoin (preferably Siam) tears
15gr hojari (royal green) frankincense tears
11gr sannnnnnnnnnnd
3gr dragon blood resin
3gr Oudh chips (optional)

Mix all, but first take the some of the largest resin tears and crush them and mix them with the sannnnnnnd,leave the smaller ones whole, if you use agarwood (oudh) break the chips into smaller pieces, of course you can take ordinary (low quality) frankincense as well, but the green hojari is the best, btw, this is burned on charcoal.



Feel free to create your own mixes with copal tears, palo santo resin, mapacho, white sage, red clay.....etc

Thank you

Everybody should have at least once in their life smelled Oudh incense.
It is much more than special, it's .... GOD

yeah, it's tricky to obtain good oudh

From what I understand, the tree produces a resin irresistible to the human olfactory to combat a mould that will eventually kill it. Quite poetic, and like I've heard the smell is...bittersweet.

Here is a funny review and a moar funny review of the review of dahn al oudh 'saad'

Lovely. Incense the exact same as the first pic in the OP was given to me by a lovely Persian herbalist whom I know. When I asked him one day if he had any esfand, his face lit up - his mother had sent him some that very morning. He brought me a packet the following day.

The flat (Golpar) seeds I believe are from a species of Heracleum, similar to H. sphondylium rather than H. mantegazzianum, one would hope. Otherwise known as hogweed, the characteristic scent being largely due to octyl acetate. It's useful for treating high blood pressure. Is this correct?

Watched it, and I'm never gonna buy oudh again, not even the cultivated kind. And tell people to do the same. I did not realize what a scene has gotten around it, very bad and sad IMO. Thank you for the informative link Intezam.

Just watched the oudh documentary. Made me think maybe we're lucky dmt is illegal and therefore not in such high demand as the major plant sources could easily be over exploited in a similar fashion if it was more sought after. I believe its already a similar situation with wild Iboga. Maybe more cultivation is the answer. Tropical spices were selling for exorbitant prices back in the 18th century after all.

We think 'the psychodelic Oudh' can help preserve large areas of rainforest, because moar people want the wild, animalistic scent of wild oudh, it's not the same scent as the one from row by row mono cultures

The forests in SE Asia are under much greater threat by palm oil which is in sooooo many billion ready made foods and even so called organic gasoline, because they just kill everything, incl. the local people, should they resist the planting.....

You know, they could even grow aquilaria trees in Peru's Amazon and that way turn endangered rainforest habitat into virgin 'forest produce cultivated land' and protect it that way from official deforestation. Given it's value, aquilaria, is unlikely to become invasive. Compare the revenue of oudh to other forest produce, such as brazil-nut....etc. It is much higher....

We think a rich biodiversity adds to the complexity of the scent, it's not alone the fungus, but it's everything: the ants, the bugs, the various parasitical orchids and liana, the birds, the claws of red panda, the soil, the fog, the gibbon pee, the cicada, the elevation.....etc

Thank you Intezam, I may try and bend a wire in that shape to experience this.

my local (2hrs away local) persian supermarket never carries golpar. i am soo mad at them...
isn't that supposed to be something very culturally persian? then they are failing big time. they have a sushi bar, but not dozens and dozens of famously persion products...
so i guess i have no choice but look online for golpar... any recommendations?

Wow thanks for posting this Intezam!

I appreciate you sharing all this interesting cultural information with us. Keep it coming.