Frankincense
Boswellia sacra / Boswellia carterii
The incense of the Magi and the Egyptian temples: pale resin tears that melt on the ember into a lemony, sacred smoke.
Frankincense is incense itself; the name comes from the Old French franc encens, "true incense". It is gathered from small, twisted Boswellia trees that grow in the desert mountains of Oman, Yemen and the Horn of Africa, clinging to bare rock with almost no soil. Their bark is papery and peels away in sheets.
A road thousands of years old
For centuries the resin travelled by camel caravan along the Incense Route, from Dhofar to the Mediterranean, worth more than gold. The Egyptians burned it in their temples and made black eye kohl from its soot. The Greeks, the Romans and then every Church took it up. The smoke rising from a censer today is the same smoke that rose over Babylon.
Harvest
Harvesters score the bark in spring, and the tree lets out a white sap that hardens over a few weeks into amber or greenish tears. It is gathered by hand, then sorted by colour and size; the palest, greenest tears from Dhofar, called hojari, are the most prized. Étienne chooses frankincense from managed harvests, on trees left to rest between seasons.
In the workshop
On charcoal, frankincense melts, sizzles and gives off a clear, lemony, resinous smoke with a balsamic depth. It goes into the shop's loose incense, and steeped in oil it lends a dry, luminous note to certain perfumes.
Our products are artisanal plant-based preparations. They are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
