WHITE LUBAN - High grade Boswellia sacra Frankincense / Oliban from Dhofar (Oman)

This high quality resin is operative for spiritual uses: prayer, sacred rituals,  contemplation, purification of space. It is also locally considered and used as a medicinal grade.

Such white resin brings us back to the etymology of the Arab vehicular name for frankincense,  referred to by a derivative of its Arabic name, olibanum (latin) or oliban (French; English). The name is derived from the arabic Arabic al-lubān roughly translated: "that which results from milking", also sometimes translated as “white”: a reference to the milky appearance of the fresh sap that comes from the “wound” in the tree after incisions are made on the bark. 

One of the central uses since ancient time has been burning as incense, hence the international name “frankincense”, derived from the Old french expression “franc encens”. The word franc in Old French meant "noble" or "pure" “franc” = “pure”, “noble”, It thus means “pure incense” and is a testimony of the highest esteem for the resin and its metonymical relation with the concept of incense as a whole: The idea the frankincense is the true or genuine incense.

Frankincense has been turning heads since the Antiquity, it was burnt on a grand scale for sacred rituals from Arabia to Mesopotamia to Ancient Rome and much beyond.

It extravagant price turned the ancient world crazy, and many empires tried to reach the source of the holy plant (Pharaonic Egypt, Romans, ...) without success, so arduous was the road, and so misleading were the information, designed to protect the best kept secret of Arabia by creating fear with mythological dangers,  blurring the actual geography with invented unreachable destinations and so on. We  know now that the precious resin they were after (B. sacra & B. carterii) grows in Oman, Yemen and the horn of Africa (and some other varieties elsewhere) 

The most refined and sought after of the frankincense family, Boswellia sacra, grows in Oman, where this resin was sourced and where such pure white high quality grade is rare, very much sought after and only marginally less expensive than the superlative green variety.

The resin comes form the higher parts of the Qara mountains, the highest part of the Nejd, that is the only region to give the real Hojari quality (locally known as Hajar, form the name of the rocky terrain). Such trees are not affected by the high humidity, fog, and monsoon season that affect the lower areas, the Qara foothills or the coastal region, thus their resin is of vastly superior quality. 

 Omani B. sacra frankincense if considered the most desirable on the global market (compared to frankincense from other origins, or other subspecies)

Wild sustainable harvest by hand.