Elbenzauber – Aramati

This is another pack I bought at Arkanum des Lichts, an inexpensive online retailer I can’t recommend. I paid €3.90 for it, though the common price for a 15g pack is €4.50. As the thickness of the hand-rolled sticks varies, the quantity per pack also fluctuates between 9 and 14 incense sticks. Mine contained 13. The burn time is listed as 40-60 minutes.
If you want to learn more about the brand, you can read my main article about it here.

The scent of Aramati is strikingly similar to that of Pushkar Temple – Poonam Flora.
Here you can see the sticks of both brands side by side:

When I smell the raw sticks, the Pushkar ones seem somewhat soapy to me. The Elbenzauber sticks smell significantly softer, sweeter, and more vanilla-like, yet fruity in the same way.

For me, these two incense stick varieties are my first encounter with this kind of incense scent, but Mike writes in his review of Poonam Flora that he considers this style of incense an absolute classic and is used to seeing these orange-coloured masalas as saffron-based. Indeed, saffron is mentioned in the description of Aramati:

‘With sandalwood, musk herb [might be Adoxa soshatellina], saffron, and camphor — a wonderfully refreshing, purifying, energising, and at the same time sensual fragrance with many subtle nuances.’

Aramati has the same fruity character as Poonam Flora, reminiscent of the taste of oranges when combined with cream and sugar. Additionally, there’s a rather prominent, creamy vanilla note, which I find noticeably stronger in Aramati than in Poonam.
The spicy warmth of the saffron also feels much more pronounced in Aramati, and overall, the scent seems somehow clearer to me.
I can’t pinpoint exactly why, but I find Aramati more pleasant, despite the two sticks being so remarkably similar. Poonam is one of the Pushkar varieties I like best, but it might be that my general disagreements with the manufacturer’s style are clouding my perception of this specific variety.

In any case, Aramati is a very interesting, vibrant scent that I can certainly appreciate. However, it’s not the kind of fragrance I actively seek, so it’s not a variety I would repurchase.