Hidden Valley Orchid

Scents of the East: Blended Series 

空谷幽蘭 "Hidden Valley Orchid" Beautifully singing new batch September 2024

Third edition : beautiful, floral ethereality among the two woods.  An excellent result.  Featuring a fresh in studio made Hawaiian clove ingredient alongside Hawaiian sandalwood and custom blends of multiple region agarwoods.

The saying in Chinese above has many layers, as most classical languages can convey much with little. 空 Is empty space, and 谷 means valley. 幽 Means hidden and serene, 蘭 is the orchid. Together they bring the imagination to a remote valley where if one looks long enough we might find the rare orchid flower, emanating extraordinary aroma.

This recipe for incense was originally inspired by a fundraising project we did with DRBU, a small liberal arts university devoted to freedom and responsibility - "Great Books".  We created an incense for each of their classical text "strands". This recipe, and the theme of "orchid fragrance" corresponds to the Chinese Classics strand of the B.A. program.  It resonates with the refinement, elegance and moral integrity of the ideal 君子 "gentleman."  There is, at times, a need to isolate one's self for study and practice, to be able to "know thyself" truly, and to bring out the best of what lays within one's own being.  That is the sense we get from this "Hidden Valley Orchid" - to take the time and space needed to train ourselves, so that we might offer some remarkable aroma for anyone who crosses our path. 

The blend combines sandalwood agarwood and spices like clove to create a unique florality in the scent profile.  We are very pleased with this edition, and look forward to creating more iterations over time.