IncenseInTheWind The Incense Hunter: Yamuna's Incense - A Marriage of India and Lithuania

Tuesday, 23 June 2026

Yamuna's Incense - A Marriage of India and Lithuania

While hunting incense from Lithuania (in the Baltic States of Northern Europe), Daniela Coelho-Rodriguez of nature design website, Forest Homes, where I bought the Lithuanian related Smells Like Spells incense sticks, points me in the direction of Yamuna's Incense in Kaunas, Lithuania's second largest city. The incense names are interesting, and the packaging and presentation is simple, clean, and attractive - there is a general Temple of Incense vibe about the operation. Intrigued I order a batch, and get into conversation with Yamuna, who tells me: "I am Lithuanian, my husband is from India and we split our time between the two countries. The story behind Yamuna’s Incense is very simple – I was searching for incense that wouldn’t cause me headaches and after extensive research in India we found what I was looking for. Initially I was using the incense for our home and gradually things evolved into Yamuna’s Incense. Basically, this brand was born out of a desire to create and share things I like with others. And that is not only about incense, it’s also about block printing, Indian shawls, scarves and more – essentially Indian crafts adapted to European sensibilities."

Yamuna of Yamuna's Incense

I like that notion of a marriage of Indian and Lithuanian cultures producing an incense which is the child of both cultures. Yamuna tells me that "Yamuna’s Incense is conceptualized in Lithuania, most of the fragrances are inspired and created by me and the incense is manufactured in India. We use some local ingredients, for instance Baltic amber oil, spruce resin, sage, thyme, etc". So the vibe feels perhaps a little closer to what Adi Guru is doing with Pure Incense.

There are now quite a number of these enterprises around the world - sourcing incense made in India, and giving it a twist via recipe tweaks and/or packaging and marketing to give it a local vibe. Yamuna's incense is well-made generally modern-aroma room-freshener incense, which sits well with me, and is part of a growing trend along with Smells Like Spells of Lithuania and Oneironaut in London, of Europeans creating/ordering fragrances for incense made in India or Nepal.

The packaging of Yamuna's Incense is elegant and stylish. The colours are carefully chosen and refined to convey a sense of quality, sophistication, and modernity, yet with an awareness of tradition. As with a number of small modern European own brand incense operations, the same packaging is used across the range - the only difference being the scent name is either hand-written or machine printed somewhere on the packaging. With Yamuna the name is hand-written along the side of the box in a gold colour that matches the logo and the tissue in which the sticks are wrapped. A peacock feather was included in my order - I don't know if this is the case with every order. I like the peacock feather - which is quite ethical, as peacocks shed their feathers every year.

One of the things that attracts me about Yamuna's Incense is the colourful names of the scents: Seduce Me Not, Sing Me a Rainbow, The Summers We Forgot, etc. I like when names are creative, romantic, and playful. The sticks are smoothly hand rolled - at first sight they appear extruded because they are so even and consistent, though the twists from hand-rolling can be seen on the ends near the stick. There are little sparkles in the paste, such as are sometimes found on incense made in Pune, especially by Haridas Madhavdas (HMS). And some of the scent profiles contain vanilla, which is typically found on incense made in Pune. There are also attractive woody notes. To anyone familiar with Pune or HMS incense, some of the scents will be like an old acquaintance.

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