What Nado Poizokhang is known for
Operating as a state incense unit since the 1960s before privatizing in 1991, Nado Poizokhang hand-rolls Zur Poe and Riwosangchoe incense from roughly 700-year-old formulas at its Thimphu factory beside Changangkha Lhakhang, using up to 108 ingredients per ritual blend.
Nado Poizokhang started as a government-run incense unit in Bhutan in the 1960s and was commercialized into a private, family-run company in 1991, as part of the Royal Government's broader privatization of state enterprises — making it, by its own claim, Bhutan's oldest hand-made incense manufacturer. The factory sits in Thimphu beside Changangkha Lhakhang and turns out more than ten thousand sticks a month, still hand-rolled rather than machine-extruded. Formulas are inherited rather than invented in-house, dated by the company to roughly 700 years of Bhutanese incense-making tradition: daily-use sticks are built from around 40 natural ingredients, while ritual incense uses 108, a number chosen for its significance in Buddhist practice. The main hand-made lines are Zur Poe, offered across seven grades suited to everyday offerings and meditation, and two ceremonial Riwosangchoe blends, alongside ZANGDRUP (a fine herbal powder) and SANG (a coarser high-altitude plant-leaf powder) for smoke offerings. Materials — trees, fruits, bark, stems, flowers, leaves and roots — are sourced from rural Bhutanese communities, which the company frames as a way of supporting local livelihoods alongside the incense trade itself, keeping both the recipe and the supply chain rooted in the same country the factory has served since the 1960s.
Best for — Hand-rolled Zur Poe and ceremonial Riwosangchoe incense made to centuries-old formulas
Where next
- Moth to a Flame — Ireland
- Antica Manifattura Cappelli — Rome
- Bucklesbury — London
Hand-curated for ORBIS · no paid placement