Over the past 30 years, Mr. Mau’s family has kept the traditional craft of making handmade incense. Every Tet, his family produces thousands of incense sticks to supply the market.

Dong Khe village, Hoang Quy commune, Hoang Hoa district, Thanh Hoa province is famous for its handmade incense making. This is a craft village with a tradition of more than 300 years. 

In the past, every Lunar New Year approaching, coming back to Dong Khe village, everywhere was filled with scent. However, at present, the craft of making handmade incense in this land is gradually disappearing.

In Dong Khe village, the only family of Mr. Doan Van Mau (64 years old) still retains the traditional beauty of making handmade incense. 

Mr. Mau said, thanks to the handmade method, incense in Dong Khe village has different characteristics and aroma compared to other types of incense. There are two types of incense that have created the trademark of Dong Khe incense village, which are incense sticks and incense sticks. 

“My family has a tradition of making handmade incense for three generations. Making incense by manual method is very hard, but in return it has a unique feature, creating special scents,” explained Mr. Mau.

According to Mr. Mau, it takes many stages to make incense. The first is to process the toothpick, the raw material for making the incense stick is selected from the trunk of the tree. After being taken back, the tree is chopped, dried and then dyed a part of the leg.

Next is the plastic running stage. This is one of the important stages to create the characteristic aroma of incense. Mr. Mau shared, usually his family uses the resin of the filling tree to make materials.

After preliminary processing, the resin is mixed with charcoal powder from the stalks of sesame, sugarcane, and banana leaves. This mixture is put into a blender, then rolled evenly on the stem of the incense.

After rolling the plastic, the craftsmen meticulously use their hands to roll the playing cards (the powder that creates the fragrance of incense). 

All stages are done by hand. This is a unique feature in the production process that Mr. Mau’s family has followed and maintained for many years.

The incense sticks after completing the stages are brought to dry. Mr. Mau said that making incense manually sometimes has to depend on the weather. Usually, they will take advantage of sunny days to dry incense.

“This year, with favorable weather, my family plans to produce about 500,000 sticks of incense to serve the Lunar New Year of the Rabbit, mainly incense sticks and incense sticks.

Perfume is a typical incense of Dong Khe village. Currently, each tree is priced at 7,000 VND($0,3). Regarding the market, our products are currently being sold to many provinces from North to South such as Dak Lak, Gia Lai, Nam Dinh, Hanoi, Bac Ninh…”, Mr. Mau said. 

According to (Dan Tri)