ICHIKŌ ICHIE: 220 Years of History in Fifteen Minutes

“Tradition is a continuous succession of innovations.”
── Shinichirō Nakatsukuri, President and Representative Director of Gyokushodo Co., Ltd.​

Essential Information

• Brand name: ICHIKŌ ICHIE, “One Fragrance, One Encounter,” pronounced Ichikō Ichie​
• Brand established: 2020, with its first store opening at Hankyu Sanbangai in Osaka
• Parent company: Gyokushodo Co., Ltd., founded in Bunka 1, 1804​
• President and Representative Director: Shinichirō Nakatsukuri​
• Location: 1-5-13 Nakamichi, Higashinari-ku, Osaka, Osaka Prefecture, Japan, head office​
• Official website: https://ichikoichie.jp​
• Official Instagram: @ichikoichie_incense​

The brand name Ichikō Ichie derives from ichigo ichie, the tea-ceremony principle of cherishing each once-in-a-lifetime encounter. Replacing the character read go, meaning a period or occasion, with kō, meaning fragrance or incense, expresses the wish to value every encounter with scent.

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The Founder and the Brand’s Origins

Gyokushodo: A 220-Year Journey from Hiroshima to Osaka

To tell the story of Ichikō Ichie, we must first trace the history of its parent company, Gyokushodo.

It began in Bunka 1, 1804, when the first-generation proprietor, Nakatsukuriya Kuemon, opened a general-goods wholesale business in Aki Province, now Hiroshima Prefecture. During the Tenpō era, the second-generation proprietor, Sakubē, moved the shop to Bakurōmachi in Osaka. He came to deal primarily in traditional medicinal materials imported through Sakai Port, especially incense ingredients such as agarwood and sandalwood, and changed the business name to “Jinkōya Sakubē,” meaning “Sakubē the Agarwood Merchant.”​

A Fateful Encounter with a Chinese Incense Maker

In Kaei 3, 1850, the greatest turning point in Gyokushodo’s history arrived. An incense maker from Qing China named Dong Yuchu, known in Japanese as Tō Gyokusho, passed on the methods of manufacturing incense sticks and the secrets of blending fragrances. Sakubē combined this secret expertise with his own extensive knowledge of aromatic materials used in traditional medicine and began producing high-quality incense sticks. In honor of his teacher’s contribution, he renamed the business “Nakatsukuri Gyokushodo,” the origin of its present name.​

A Succession of Innovations: Bringing Technology and Tradition Together

In the middle of the Meiji era, the business introduced machinery and established a mass-production system. It sought markets throughout Japan and expanded by opening “Tokyo Gyokushodo” in Nihonbashi, Tokyo. However, Tokyo Gyokushodo burned down in the Great Kantō Earthquake. Although rebuilt, it closed in Shōwa 17, 1942, and the business thereafter continued to operate from Osaka.

In Shōwa 46, 1971, Nakatsukuri Gyokushodo was incorporated as Gyokushodo Co., Ltd. That same year it launched Usugumo, the industry’s first short-length gift incense sticks. In Shōwa 49, 1974, it introduced Kōjurin, a premium everyday incense featuring sandalwood fragrance in predominantly black packaging. At least fifty years later, Kōjurin remains a popular core product.

On the technical side, the company devised a groundbreaking “multi-tier drying method” in Shōwa 54, 1979. The conventional process of natural drying on wooden boards took around three weeks. Alternating layers of cardboard sheets and incense sticks and drying them with airflow reduced this to just three days. The invention received a manufacturing-process patent in Heisei 1, 1989, and has now become the industry standard.

The Nakatsukuri family also has precepts handed down through the generations.

“Stay modest, endure long.”
── Continuity and permanence are the guiding principles of our business. This means rejecting expansion and diversification and concentrating on our core trade.​

“Do not chase speculative profits.”
── We believe that money obtained through means other than work, such as gambling or lotteries, has no value.​

With this prudent business philosophy, Gyokushodo has maintained its commitment to “focusing on its core trade” for at least two hundred years.

A Turning Point Born of the Pandemic: The Birth of ICHIKŌ ICHIE

In 2020, Gyokushodo, whose business had long centered on wholesaling, launched its first directly operated incense brand, ICHIKŌ ICHIE.

Two main factors are said to have been behind this decision. One was that, as a wholesale manufacturer, the company had lacked opportunities to hear consumers’ voices directly. The other was that the pandemic increased demand for incense, creating an opportunity to reach new customers. At an online discussion hosted by the Osaka Design Center in 2020, President Shinichirō Nakatsukuri said, “Tradition is a continuous succession of innovations,” expressing his sense of momentum as “fragrance has come to be accepted as part of a scene in everyday life.”

ICHIKŌ ICHIE began with its first store at Hankyu Sanbangai in Umeda, Osaka. Following a renovation and reopening in April 2023, a second brand, QNOWA, opened at KITTE Osaka in July 2024. In April 2026, it held its first Tokyo pop-up store at Lumine Shinjuku, steadily broadening the reach of its activities.

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The Brand’s Commitments

“What Is Authentic Fragrance?” A Question It Continues to Explore

The opening of Ichikō Ichie’s official website includes the following words.

“Just as the tone changes with the musical instrument, and the taste of wine changes with the grapes, what we perceive in incense changes with its ingredients. Those differences and fluctuations give rise to endless enjoyment.”​

The brand pursues the question, “What is authentic fragrance?” It gathers rare natural aromatic woods and essential oils, some now difficult even to obtain, one by one, continually exploring how to express “the fragrance created by nature itself” as incense.

Natural Materials and the Spirit of “Listening to Incense”

By bringing out the character of natural ingredients, ICHIKŌ ICHIE aims for “gentle fragrances that never become tiresome, even when enjoyed every day.” Beneath that gentleness, its incense is said to contain complex nuances, revealing different expressions from day to day.​

Kōdō, the traditional Japanese art of incense, has a distinctive sensibility: one “listens to” fragrance rather than “smelling” it. Ichikō Ichie hopes to bring this spirit subtly into contemporary life.​

Fifteen-Minute Short Incense: Designed for Modern Life

Each stick is 60 mm long and burns for approximately fifteen minutes. This short format was created with the hope that, even during busy days, people might “easily make a moment of ‘listening’ to a favorite fragrance part of their routine.”

Another distinctive feature is that each incense stick is individually wrapped in a transparent bag. Incense “breathes like a living thing,” absorbing other scents and releasing its own, which can alter its fragrance. Wanting each stick to offer a fresh encounter with scent, the brand takes care to preserve the freshness of the top notes, the fragrance released when burning begins.

Behind the Craftsmanship: Brass Kneaders and Hundred-Year-Old Fir Boards

The official website’s “Behind of ICHIKŌ ICHIE” series carefully introduces the manufacturing process.

In the kneading stage, fragrant powders are combined with materials that aid combustion and ingredients that act as a “glue” binding the powders together, then mixed evenly in a brass kneading machine. Brass is relatively soft among metals and is said to be “suited to gently mixing powders, like human hands kneading clay.” The amount of water varies between summer and winter, with fine adjustments for the temperature and humidity of the day.​

During shaping and drying, the kneaded material is extruded from a machine in fine strands resembling sōmen noodles, then arranged on boards called bon-ita. These boards are made of fir. Unlike cedar or cypress, fir has no scent of its own, reflecting the wisdom of earlier generations who chose a material that would not impart extraneous odors to the incense. Even the newest boards were made around fifty years ago, and some are said to have been used for eighty or a hundred years.​

Quality control involves meticulous testing not only of fragrance but also of consistent burning time, approximately fifteen minutes per stick, the shape of the ash, the way smoke is released, and even the size of the glowing ember. Making every stick “60 mm long, with a burning time of around fifteen minutes” is not easy for Ichikō Ichie, which uses many natural materials. However, “consistent timing is proof that the incense is in consistent condition.”​

Attention to the Store Environment

The Hankyu Sanbangai store is a calm, predominantly beige space with plaster-finished walls and natural materials throughout. At its center stands a display fixture made of Komatsu stone from Manazuru in Kanagawa Prefecture. The stone changes its appearance with the way it is worked and the angle from which it is viewed. It was chosen because this “has something in common with incense fragrances, whose expression changes with one’s mood, location, and the passage of time.”

Wide-mouthed glass funnels are used for scent tasting, allowing customers to carefully experience the incense’s uwa-nioi, its fragrance before burning.​

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The Incense Lineup

Ichikō Ichie’s incense comprises three regular series and one limited-edition series, totaling around twenty varieties.​

PREMIUM: The Pinnacle of Natural Aromatic Woods

The highest-tier line uses natural aromatic woods of exceptional global rarity. Each incense in this unique series is blended with just one aromatic wood. When a particular wood runs out, a different one is sourced, so production proceeds gradually in limited quantities.

Product	Characteristics	Indicative Price, Tax Included
Kyara	A supreme-grade aromatic wood that is difficult to obtain today	¥16,500
Siam Agarwood	The rich sweetness of Vietnamese agarwood	¥7,700
Tani Agarwood	The refreshing spiciness of Indonesian agarwood	¥5,500
Rozan Sandalwood	The gentle sweetness of Indian sandalwood	¥3,300

Jinsuikōboku, or sinking aromatic wood, is formed when tall evergreen trees in the Thymelaeaceae family are damaged by natural forces such as wind, rain, or lightning, and resin accumulates over at least a hundred years. Its name comes from its density, which is high enough for it to sink in water.​

“The PREMIUM series of the ICHIKŌ ICHIE brand was born from our desire to draw on at least two hundred years of experience with aromatic woods to convey ‘authentic fragrance’ to everyone.”​

NATURAL: Expressing Plants Themselves Through Natural Essential Oils

Blending natural essential oils and other natural materials, this series expresses the scents of flowers and plants themselves. Its aim is to convey the fragrance of nature itself, and of the plants themselves, through incense.

The lineup comprises eight fragrances: Mint, Ylang Ylang, Rosemary, Rose & Green, Ginger, Sandalwood, Cedarwood, and Bitter Orange.​

For example, Rose & Green conveys not only the scent of a rose blossom but also the “vibrant green fragrance” rising from its stems and leaves. This reveals the brand’s ambition to express nature’s many facets through scent.​

THINGS: Familiar Scents for Everyday Life

An approachable series inspired by the things encountered in daily life, such as plants, fruits, and spices.

The lineup comprises eight fragrances: Water Lily, Pear, Tuberose, Magnolia, Wisteria, Osmanthus, Chai, and Matcha.​

Another distinctive feature of this series is the inclusion of seemingly unexpected incense subjects such as chai and matcha. In blending Chai, the brand takes spices’ sensitivity to heat into account, using aromatic materials associated with traditional medicine and natural fragrance ingredients derived from cinnamon and cloves, long familiar in incense-making, to recreate a “sweetness with depth.”​

LIMITED: Carrying the Changing Seasons in Scent

A limited-time series celebrating the changing seasons and special occasions. Past releases include Palo Santo, White Sage, Patchouli, Amber Nights, and Serene Sanctuary.

Gift Sets

The brand also offers 3 SCENTS BOX, an assortment allowing customers to choose three favorite scents, priced at ¥3,300 including tax, and THE PREMIUM BOX, featuring all four Premium series varieties, priced at ¥7,700 including tax.​

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By the Way…

• The “Ō” in the Brand Name
  The official spelling is ICHIKŌ ICHIE, with a macron above the O to indicate a long vowel. The Japanese name is pronounced Ichikō Ichie, meaning “One Fragrance, One Encounter.”
• Gyokushodo’s Other Brand, QNOWA
  In July 2024, Gyokushodo opened QNOWA, its second incense brand after Ichikō Ichie, at KITTE Osaka. With the concept of “bringing value to time through fragrance,” it offers thirty-one incense varieties across three lines: Moments, Inspired, and Eternal. The Moments series takes the distinctive approach of expressing the moods and scenes of different times of day through fragrances named from “4:00” to “24:00.” The shop’s name embodies the wish to “keep fine fragrance circulating forever,” a wordplay on ku no wa, an everlasting circle.
• Gyokushodo’s Name Comes from a Chinese Person’s Name
  The name Gyokushodo derives from Dong Yuchu, known in Japanese as Tō Gyokusho, the Qing-era incense maker who passed on the manufacturing methods and secret blending techniques in 1850. His name was incorporated into the business name to honor his contribution, an anecdote that symbolizes the exchange of fragrance culture between Japan and China.
• Gyokushodo’s Connection with the Man Who Named Tsūtenkaku
  In the Taishō era, the Confucian scholar Fujisawa Nangaku, a friend of fourth-generation proprietor Nakatsukuri Sakugorō, was also known as the man who named Osaka’s Tsūtenkaku tower. One of his pen names was Shichikōsai, “Studio of Seven Fragrances,” and he is thought to have possessed a deep knowledge of incense. A framed plaque, 75 cm high and 150 cm wide, bearing a formal address he composed remains at Gyokushodo today.​