Incense "joss" is derived from the Latin "deus" (god) via the Portuguese "deos" through the Javanese "dejos", through Chinese pidgin English. The raw materials are powdered and then mixed together with a binder to form a paste, which, for direct burning incense, is then cut and dried into pellets. Incense of the Athonite Orthodox Christian tradition is made by powdering frankincense or fir resin, mixing it with essential oils. Floral fragrances are the most common, but citrus such as lemon is not uncommon. The incense mixture is then rolled out into a slab approximately 1 cm thick and left until the
Incense warp or become misshapen when improperly dried, and as such must be placed in climate-controlled rooms and rotated several times through the drying process. Traditionally, the bamboo core of cored stick incense is prepared by hand from "Phyllostachys heterocycla cv. pubescens" since this species produces thick wood and easily burns to ashes in the incense stick. In a process known as "splitting the foot of the incense stick", the bamboo is trimmed to length, soaked, peeled, and split in halves until the thin sticks of bamboo have square cross sections of less than 3mm. This process has been largely been