Thanks to #Singbaohkej1973 for reporting our entrepreneurial story
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In the first half of 2020, when the epidemic in Hong Kong was at its peak, a gathering restriction order was implemented.
Faced with unemployment upon graduation, Isabelle Cheng often finds herself sitting at home, suffering from insomnia and anxiety. Her beloved cat, Crab, is also affected and starts to grow angry.
After hearing a friend's introduction, she lit an incense stick. A wisp of smoke curled around the house, seemingly taking away worldly concerns and bringing relaxation to both her loved ones. She fell in love with the art of making incense, traveling around the world to learn the craft and explore incense shops and wood. She partnered with her boyfriend, Gin Lee, to establish the local handmade incense brand "Xiangqiu." Earlier this year, they participated in an exhibition in Kyoto, Japan, where they were spotted by buyers and their products were listed at Daimaru Department Store, successfully expanding into the overseas market.
What was once elementary school common sense seems to be gradually forgotten. "It turns out many people don't know that Hong Kong is named after the port where incense was shipped and sold! Only when we started developing our brand did we discover that there are still many local artisans who are committed to making products in Hong Kong."
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Many traditional incense shops were family businesses, but recently they have seen an increasing number of individual incense shops, including small factory-style incense brands. Perhaps due to the excessive pressure of urban dwellers, a stroll through shopping malls and markets now reveals a dazzling array of incense sticks, incense sticks, and other products. Japanese-style ceramic incense holders add a touch of Zen to your home.
Isabelle and Gin are a new force in the local incense industry. Their team of five or six people rents a 1,000-square-foot factory in a factory area, where they hand-make hundreds of boxes of incense sticks daily. Their products are hand-packed and available online, at Ngong Ping Village, and at the airport. In 2024, the brand was awarded the Hong Kong Design Centre's Digital Economy Accelerator program.
Starting a business during the epidemic
"Hong Kong Dian Dang", a brand of the Law Group, has been providing
Isabelle and Gin's products won the "Top Ten Craftsmen Award" this year in the "Aromatherapy/Diffuser Stones/Perfumery" category. The judging panel included Allan Zeman, renowned designer Edwin Chan, and Shinji Kuno, curator of "Kyoto Crafts DALOGUE 2025" and representative of Showyou Co., Ltd. The winners will be able to participate in an exhibition in Kyoto, leading to their products being listed at Daimaru Department Store.
Their office is connected to the factory, and the air is thick with the scent of wood. Several small devices line the factory floor, including grinders, molds for pressing incense sticks, and tools for extracting pure water. Gin gestured at a few machines and sighed, "Many of them are custom-made in mainland China. We've also learned how to repair them. We can't find them in Hong Kong anymore, and most of the existing ones are too large for our small factory." He pulled out a wrapped handmade mold-making machine that lay on the floor and touched it carefully. "This machine was used in our early days of making incense. We kept repairing it, and one time it actually exploded!" The machine eventually died, but he couldn't bear to throw it away, driven by revolutionary spirit. "I imagine that if I ever tell our story to future generations, this machine will definitely have a place in it!"
Gin used to work behind the scenes in film and television production. During the epidemic, almost the entire city was at a standstill, and the lives of the two were forced to press the pause button.
"We both had nothing better to do, so we looked for things to learn. While learning to make incense, we discovered that Hong Kong (one of the names) got its name from agarwood," Isabelle said lightly. Recalling the boredom and emotional distress of the pandemic, she still feels emotional.
"Everyone says a pet's mood reflects their owner's state, and Crab was acting strangely at the time. I took him to the vet, and the diagnosis was that he was physically healthy, but might have emotional issues." She experimented with burning incense, initially trying thuja wood products, which improved both her and her cat's situation. "I found it fascinating to learn how to make incense. I took online courses during the pandemic. After that, I flew to Taiwan, Japan, and other places to study, learning to distinguish incense materials and wood, and constantly experimenting with the ratio of powder to water."
The starting point of this dream was that I would start selling my incense products in the market at the end of 2022. In 2023, I wanted to participate in the "Ten Craftsmen" competition, so I conceived the idea of starting my own brand.
Use local materials
Isabel said the name "Fragrant Hill" has a meaning similar to Hong Kong, "like a hill or an island surrounded by fragrance." Initial production will be small-scale, and before officially moving into the factory in 2024, the two will occasionally use friends' studios to produce.
I once asked a junior college student for help with packaging design. This "hands-off" approach is common in the production industry. Did they pay any new fees for the design work? "Yes, I did! It was a friendly price, though," Gin said quickly with a smile.
The special thing about their products is that they are made of natural ingredients without any additives.
Pet friendly and made with local wood.
Hong Kong's numerous mountainous forests and frequent typhoons have resulted in mountains of discarded wood. It turns out these materials can have a second life and be repurposed.
Gin pulled out a few pieces of wood and explained how the wood grain, with its varying shades of light and dark, contained dark resinous areas that were the source of the fragrance. "Once, we were at a market in Tai Kwun and saw a lot of decorative flowers being discarded. We wondered, could we try making incense with them?"
As the process progressed, they expanded to using local woods. "We found that most of them were viable, but the flavor profile wasn't necessarily the traditional sandalwood or agarwood we're used to. Each grafted wood had its own unique characteristics."
Later, I learned about the environmentally friendly factory "Hong Kong Wood" that recycles local waste trees.
Seat", and began to take wood from the factory.
While they often talk about sustainable development, they witnessed the vibrant and diverse vitality of Hong Kong's natural environment during the wood-collecting process. "We have lychee, longan, camphor, fir, and other trees, including Christmas trees that we collect after the holidays."
How does a piece of wood become a stick of incense? Gin took us inside the incense factory, where boxes of polished wood powder were prepared to be mixed with water, sticky powder, natural fragrances, and purified water, and then kneaded into a dough. "The wood powder must be ground until it's as smooth as flour. After kneading into a dough, it's put into a machine and pressed repeatedly until it's shaped and cut."
The unpressed fragrance resembles a roll of spaghetti, which needs to be rolled repeatedly and then molded. The process is not difficult, but very labor-intensive. After forming, it is placed on a plate to dry, which takes several days. "It's a bit like making wine; the longer it is, the better."
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For more detailed information, please visit the official website of Hong Kong Economic Times www.hkej.com or the official website of Heung Yau https://heungyau.com/pages/media reports
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