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In Yongchun, a county in China’s southeastern province of Fujian, incense makers open a handful of thin bamboo splints into a fan. Only then do they scatter fragrant powder over the sticks. The powder clings because each splint already carries a fine coating that turns sticky when wet. Bamboo gives the stick its shape, and the binder holds the aromatics in place. A stick of traditional Yongchun incense takes shape from the inside out, one layer at a time.[1][2]
Two powders, two jobs
If you’ve read about incense making in English, you may have come across makko. The Japanese incense maker Baieido explains that the word means incense powder. The powder the firm calls makko is milled from tree bark. Water brings out its stickiness, allowing it to bind other powdered ingredients together.[3]
Yongchun has its own names for its materials. Quanzhou’s heritage inventory describes moso bamboo as the backbone of the stick and a plant known locally as shan pipa as the source of the binder. The aromatic powder goes on over that. Once you can picture the layers, it’s easy to see which powder brings the fragrance and which helps it stay on the bamboo.[1]
Why dip the bamboo twice?
The Chinese name for this incense, miexiang, refers to a thin strip split from bamboo. The strip runs the length of the incense, so the maker can hold one end while coating the other. You can often see the construction for yourself. On a bamboo-core stick, the bare foot you hold continues up through the fragrant coating. Coreless incense takes shape differently.
A People’s Daily Overseas Edition report from Yongchun profiled incense maker Pu Lianggong. Its illustrated account explains the two dips. First the maker wets the length of bamboo that will carry the incense and rubs it with binder powder. Once the coating is even, the sticks go back into the water, just up to the edge of that first layer. This time the water wets the binder. As it grows tacky, it gives the fragrant powder a surface to cling to.[2]
It’s a lovely detail to look for. The maker dips the same bamboo twice and the gesture looks almost identical, yet each time the water meets a different surface.
Why open the sticks like a fan?
Sprinkle powder over a tightly held bundle and most of it will land on the outer sticks. Spread them in your hand and the powder can reach the surfaces that were hidden. Yongchun makers call this zhan xiang, or fanning out the incense. If we could choose one moment to illustrate the craft, it would be this one. The fan is beautiful precisely because the space between its spokes has a purpose.[2]
After sprinkling comes lun xiang. The maker turns the bundle with both palms to distribute the powder, picking out flawed sticks along the way. The local craft record distinguishes the base coat, the inner coat and the outer coat. Once built up, the sticks are spread on racks to dry. Each finished stick traces a fine straight line. To make it, the hands have traced fans and arcs.[1][2]
The next time you pick up a bamboo-core incense stick, look where the bare foot meets the fragrant coating. That small step in thickness shows how much has been built up around the bamboo. Long before you light the stick, there’s a little of the maker’s work you can already see.
Sources & notes
The sources below support the historical and material claims. Connections to contemporary life are our editorial interpretation.
- Yongchun bamboo-splint incenseQuanzhou Intangible Cultural Heritage Inventory
Documents the bamboo core, local binding material and successive layers.
- Incense making in YongchunLiu Xiaoyu, People's Daily Overseas Edition
Reporting on Pu Lianggong and an illustrated account of dipping, fanning, turning and drying.
- MakkoBaieido USA
The maker explains its terminology and the adhesive properties of bark powder.
Quiet Xiang Editorial conducted an internal source review. Our reading of the fan and the arc is editorial interpretation. The AI-generated illustrations depict imagined craftspeople and workshop settings. Our editorial approach.