Sumbu

Since 2020

Sumbu is the Indonesian word for a wick. The atelier began in 2020 in a back room in Yogyakarta, with a brass mould, a pot of wax and a reel of cotton.

It pours tapers: tall, thin candles that stand in a holder and burn for six to eight hours, the way candles were made before they came in glass. Each is scented with one material from the islands, bought from the people who distil it: lemongrass from Java, cinnamon bark from Kerinci in Sumatra, patchouli from Sulawesi.

The wax is soy and coconut, and the wicks are cotton, braided in the workshop. There are three candles and nothing else.

What it makes

• SeraiLemongrass, the tall grass at the edge of every kitchen garden on Java
• Kayu ManisCinnamon bark from Kerinci, in the highlands of Sumatra
• NilamPatchouli, the leaf Indonesia distils for most of the world's supply

By hand