Listening to Kida Jinseido Ranjatai

Considered a National Treasure of Japan, Ranjatai is the most famous piece of fragrant wood in the incense world. It's arrival to Japan is documented in the second-oldest written record of Japanese history, the Nihon Shoki (Chronicles of Japan), where is it recorded that Ranjatai “divinely” washed up upon the shores of Awaji Island in the April of 595 CE. Originally known as Ōjuku-kō, meaning “yellow ripe incense,” in 756, it was given its ceremonial name of "Ranjatai" and offered to the Great Buddha at Todai-ji by Empress Kōmyō to honor her husband, the temple's founder, Emperor Shōmu. There it has been carefully preserved in Tōdai-ji’s treasure repository, Shōsō-in, for over 1,200 years. Cut only three times in its 1,400 years by icons of Japanese history, Ashikaga Yoshimasa, Oda Nobunaga, and Emperor Meiji, Ranjatai continue to this day to be a revered symbol of the importance of incense in the history of Japan. It is to this lofty example that Kida Jinseido offers their own fragrant creation named in Ranjatai's honor.

Described as "Paying homage to the most famous piece of aloeswood in existence, the revered Ranjatai," Kida Jinseido uses aloeswood blended with traditional aromatic spices to create a fragrance that combines traditional semi-sweetness with aloeswood woody tones. With a reverence toward its namesake, Ranjatai highlights the traditions of the Heian golden age of incense in a stick intended for daily use.

Unlit, Ranjatai's milk chocolate brown stick is clean and fresh, with a light sweetness, distant spiciness, and soapstone coolness. The stick itself gives more of an impression of a sandalwood blend in its delicate sweetness than that of a more earthy aloeswood as it is soft and gentle, with creamy hinted sweet overtones. The unlit stick is light, airy, and filled with soft cinnamon sweetness.

Once lit, Ranjatai begins with the bitter tones of aloeswood juxtaposed with warm clear notes of cinnamon, almost fruity rather than sharp in its sweetness; savory and sweet like toast with jam. Notes of caramel and milky cream rise as the stick warms and the fragrance evens, giving the sweetness a fullness that is soft and translucent like that of a sandalwood, yet spicier like chai tea. Traditional notes of clove and maple syrup warm to provide a base over which its light sweetness floats, yet more as hints to provide rounding to the sweetness. Ranjatai's aloeswood note here is less of a feature and more of a passing undercurrent, confined to the background in hints and whispers, occasionally lending a bitter or floral woody note to enhance its prominent light spicy sweetness, resting in the shadows of its more prominent notes.

In many ways, Ranjatai reminds of Kida Jinseido's popular Kyarakunkoh, especially in the its cinnamon sweetness blended within a cornucopia of traditional spices creating a soapstone colored sweetness. Yet Ranjatia differentiates itself in the depth of its subtleties with a much more elegant and refined nature. Ranjatai's aloeswood note provides a richness and light floral sweetness not found in Kyarakunkoh. Yet this note is not pronounced, but instead enhances its lightly sweet prominent top note, giving Ranjatai's fragrance a refined presence and well rounded vibrancy.

The longer Ranjatai glows, the softer the fragrance becomes, as though lulling the listener to sleep in its soft embrace. Gentle, light, and at ease, the soft cinnamon floral creamy sweetness comes in brief realizations, fixed into a soapstone cohesiveness, drifting in and out like waves on the beach. There is nothing stimulating or jarring about Ranjatai. Like its namesake, the feeling it creates is timeless, at ease, and refined like courtiers focused upon their incense blending.

Ranjatai's after-note maintains the sweetness of the burn, taking on a cooler more pronounced soapstone flavor. The light woody background notes of aloeswood floral vanish, leaving in their place more of a polished golden sweetness, smooth and refined. As the fragrance cools further, the overall tone shifts from a light sweetness mixed with spice to one of a pronounced perfume quality, more mild, light, and clean. Yet even here, hours later, a subtle toasted caramel cinnamon note can be found lingering playfully peaking out from behind a hiding spot.

Soft, sweet, and refined with fruity cinnamon and traditional spice notes blended with a light hint of of aloeswood floral sweetness, Ranjatai is relaxing and comfortable, timeless in its presentation as its namesake.

The days speed by,
Spring coming and going.
The Blue Jay takes no notice.

Kida Jinseido Ranjatai comes in the following size:
200-stick box.

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