Incense waterfall, incense waterfall burner, incense fountain, incense fountain burner, backflow incense burner, and variations to these names (eg, backflow incense holder) all refer to the same thing. They are all names for a type of incense burner or holder made specifically for backflow incense. Backflow incense cones are also otherwise known as or incense waterfall cones.

In general, incense cones are more difficult to light than incense sticks due to the bigger surface area that needs to be lit, but the same steps apply. You light the tip of the incense with a flame until it catches fire, allow it to burn for a few seconds, then gently fan out the flame, ensuring that a glowing ember remains. This may need to be repeated several times if the first time doesn’t work. For more details, we have a thorough, step-by-step article to guide you.

Once properly lit, place the incense onto the incense holder. Keep the incense and burner on a surface away from wind or sudden air movements (windows, fans, AC, etc), and you should see the smoke flow and fall after 3-5 minutes. Backflow incense burners are visually quite stunning, as it looks like the smoke magically cascades downward.

Incense cones are exactly as the name suggests – coned shaped incense made from incense powder blended with a binder and water, then shaped and dried. The smoke from cone incense rises upwards. Backflow incense is different from this. It typically refers to incense cones that have a hole through the bottom middle center, although backflow incense can also be in other shapes. The smoke from backflow incense flows downwards through the bottom hole, and the video in a previous section demonstrates this.

Like all different types of incense, backflow incense is great to relieve stress – when you want a break in your day, a moment of relaxation. It is most suitable for when you are in the mood for something more visual, rather than accompanying another activity like yoga or meditation. I light up a backflow incense when I want to watch gentle, calming movements.

Incense waterfalls can also be great conversation pieces due to their unique designs and effects. So another good time is when you have a few friends gathered around the coffee table – together you can enjoy the miniature landscapes created by the backflow incense.

Backflow incense cones will burn anywhere from 10-30min depending on the type of incense cone. We list the burn time for each of the incense cones we sell in the product description. In general, our handmade incense cones will tend to burn longer (~25min) than our machine made incense cones (10-15min), this is also true of the handmade incense sticks we sell.

We love and live what we do. We are a Chinese-hyphenated family, and our lives are an eclectic blend of languages and cultures.

We were both first generation immigrant kids. Born in Taipei (Bill) and Chengdu (Miranda), we moved with our families to the US and Australia at the age of 8 and 10 respectively. Through our teens and twenties, we experienced the whole spectrum of emotions typical of immigrants: social exclusion, cultural rejection, identity confusion.

In our twenties, partly in search of our roots, and partly in search of opportunities, we both moved back East, and landed in Shanghai. In this melting pot of a city, which has bridged Chinese and Western cultures for the best part of 150 years, we met, married, and finally came to terms with ourselves.

We embraced the fact that we are inherently full of contradictions: despite our preferred language now being English, here and there we inevitably come across words which we can only express in Mandarin; despite congee and chicken broth being our comfort food, we order just a little too much pizza and chocolate cake day-to-day; despite all of the rejection and confusion we felt in the Western societies that we grew up in, at times this motherland feels so alien that we are truly the foreigners.

When it became obvious that we didn’t belong here, nor where we had grown up; that we are neither American nor Taiwanese, Australian nor Chinese, we saw no other solution than to embrace it. Sure, it sucks to not belong, but it is our eclectic, multi-cultural influences that make us unique, and our lives are all the richer for it.

Over time, we realized that our story is by no means unique. Friends all around us – those from a Chinese background and those not – spoke of similar struggles with identities. The seemingly contradictory pull of the culture and traditions they were born into, and the culture and traditions that they are exposed to as adults. In some way shape or form, this story is the story of all of us.

So that is how we came to the idea of creating Kin | 恳. We wanted to create a range of products that captures the balance and interaction of cultures in their most beautiful form. Objects that are rooted in the richness of Chinese history, yet are global in their relevance.