lupe.pinonin Ambers, Spices & Gourmands · Santa Fe ·
DiscoveryFrankincense tears smell different before you light them
A neighbour back from a trip gave me a little bag of frankincense tears. I only knew it as church smoke. Unlit, a tear smells like lemon peel and pine sap, nothing smoky at all. I warmed one on a tin lid over the stove and the church came straight back.
6 comments
frankie.incense
Fun fact: the first perfume-maker anyone can name is Tapputi, recorded on a Mesopotamian cuneiform tablet dated 1200 BCE [I definately want to know what was in her pot]. Your cold tear is the part the congregation never gets to smell, lupe.
Footnotes welcome.
amara.oud
At Eid my uncle puts frankincense on the coals and carries it through every room. I've never smelled it cold. Lemon and pine makes sense though.
harriet.hay
If you warm resin indoors, open a window afterwards: the club's frankincense page explains what burning it does to indoor air.
maeve.moss
Turf does the same trick, the sod smells of wet earth and roots in the basket and only turns sweet and peppery on the fire and you'd never guess it was the same lump.
lupe.pinon
Done, and closed again fast, the nights are cold here now. I tried a bit of myrrh next to it too: bitter and warm, like dark honey that went slightly wrong.
juniper_jules
Cold resin against warmed resin is greenware against fired glaze, same stuff, different animal.