What we've been doing

September 2026

Now in Hong Kong

SubstitOud is on shelves in Hong Kong, sold through the dried-goods and herbal shops of the old streets and burned at the roadside shrines people stop at on their way past.

The expansion was led by Jonathan So, our Regional Director for Hong Kong.

Jonathan So outside a dried-goods shop on Chengtu Road, Hong Kong, where SubstitOud is stocked SubstitOud incense tubes on the shelf of a Hong Kong herbal shop SubstitOud incense tubes among dried goods at a Hong Kong stall A Hong Kong street shrine stocked with SubstitOud incense

September 2026

Expanding to China, Nepal, and Bhutan

Rex Tsang joins SubstitOud as Regional Director for China, Nepal, and Bhutan, three places where incense is burned daily in homes, monasteries, and roadside shrines.

He is building the distributor and temple relationships that will carry low-smoke incense into that daily practice.

Rex Tsang, Regional Director for China, Nepal, and Bhutan

September 2026

New packaging, new batch

The new sleeve carries a crane standing on the back of a turtle. The pair stands beside the altar in Vietnamese temples and communal houses: the turtle is the earth, its flat underside the ground and its domed shell the vault of the sky, and the crane is what rises from it.

Incense does the same work. Smoke leaves the earth and carries a thought upward, which is why the two animals keep watch over the place where it is lit. Our first full batch in the new boxes is packed and shipping.

The new SubstitOud sleeve, showing a crane standing on the back of a turtle New SubstitOud boxes and printed sleeves laid out The first full batch of SubstitOud in the new packaging, stacked and ready to ship