Many people say "all agarwood smells the same," but that's just because they haven't trained their nose yet. Identifying incense doesn't rely on talent—it relies on method.
Before smelling incense, don't eat strong-flavored food, don't spray perfume, and don't lean in right after smoking or applying hand cream. Only with a clean nose can you hear what the fragrance is saying. You can first take a few deep breaths to bring your sense of smell back to a neutral state.
Smelling one at a time easily causes "face blindness." Take two pieces from different producing regions or with different oil content, smell them alternately, and look for differences: Is this one sweeter or cooler? Does that one have a longer finish? Comparison is the fastest way to train your nose—more useful than memorizing terms.
After each smell, note your impression in three words, such as "clean, sweet, short." After collecting notes for a while and looking back, you'll find your olfactory vocabulary has grown, and when you smell new material you can quickly categorize it. This is the clumsy method veteran incense friends all use, but it's the most reliable.
A nose isn't innate—it's fed by comparison after comparison.
With few materials at home, progress is slow. The Songzhuang store always keeps a variety of samples, so you can smell them all in one go, and the shopkeeper will guide you through comparisons. If you want to seriously train your nose for identifying incense, coming to the store is more efficient than buying blindly.
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