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From Ee J. Frankel, Play It Again: Asian Games and Pastimes

"The incense game or incense ceremony (kôdô) probably had its origin in the Heian Period when such aesthetic skills as the identification of fragrances became part of the training of aristocrats. Gradually, literary themes became associated with certain fragrances. Sometime in the following Muromachi period (1185-13??), the game evolved into a complicated pastime that required a larger variety of scents than previously used, and accommodated up to ten guests as participants.
By the early Edo period, the game reached new heights of popularity, probably due to the formalization of the tea ceremony, that also included the burning of incense. During the eighteenth century, possibly because of a shortage of imported scented woods (kôboku), the incense ceremony survived only among the very rich and wealthy merchants who also introduced a modified version of the game and its accoutrement's. What follows is a description of the typical components of the Incense Game of the very early part of the Edo period (1615-1867).
The game is customarily played with four fragrances (in the form of pieces of scented wood), three of which are supplied by the host and one by a guest. The three house scents are each divided into four portions that are placed in individual packets, making a total of twelve packets of house fragrances. The guest fragrance is put into one packet, making a grand total of thirteen.
In the preliminary round, the three house fragrances are introduced and identified for the players (the guest fragrance remaining a mystery). Then the game begins and is played out in ten rounds, during which each of the players attempts to distinguish the four possible scents they are currently being given to identify.
In the simplest form of the game, the preliminary round begins with the guests or players (usually highly literate people, sensitive to poetry) seated close enough together for the burning incense to be passed among them easily. The host, who has prepared small pieces of burning charcoal in a larger burner, or kôro, lifts a piece of the red-hot charcoal with the proper tool, and buries it within the lacquered, ash-filled kikikôro (a special metal-lined container for this purpose), leaving over it only a thin covering layer of ash. The ash is then smoothed and rounded into a cone with a spatula-like tool.
When the guests appear comfortable, the host opens one packet of the three house fragrances, gives it an identifying name such as "Fragrance One" and then places the perfumed wood on a mica square that is in turn placed on the heated ash. The burner is then passed around for the guests to acquaint themselves with the fragrance. Fragrance Two and Fragrance Three are then introduced and identified in the same manner. After all three pieces of scented wood have been gently sniffed, each is placed on one of a set of plum-blossom-shaped rests provided for this purpose. Then the game proper begins.
At this point ten packets of fragrance remain -- nine of house fragrances and one unknown -- and the players will now have to identify them without being told which is which.
Each player will have been provided with a set of counters or ballots, all of which have that player's identifying token (some tree or flower) on one side, and a possible choice (Fragrance One, Fragrance Two, Fragrance Three, or Unknown Fragrance) on the other. As each new packet is opened and its contents placed in the burner and then passed around, each player chooses a counter that matches his or her guess about its identity and drops it into a receptacle provided for that purpose. The burner is passed around again, the fragrances inhaled, and their identities guessed ten times. Sometimes these actions may be accompanied by the scent or alluding to the floral picture on the player's ballot. As the closed room quickly fills with lingering odors from previous rounds, the game becomes increasingly more difficult.
After each round the ballots are examined, and the players' guesses are written by brush on a record board. (Sometimes the ballots are put in an envelope until the game is completed and the guesses registered on the board at that time.) The winner is often awarded the record board. Depending on the time available and the number of guests, a recess may be called and food served in another area."

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