Coffee

What it is

Coffee is made from the seeds inside the fruits of Coffea plants. Kew identifies Coffea arabica and Coffea canephora as the two principal commercial beverage species.

For scent study, green coffee and roasted coffee should be treated as very different references. The familiar coffee smell emerges largely through roasting.

What to notice

Roasted coffee can contain impressions of:

• toast and roasted grain
• nuts
• caramel
• bitterness
• cocoa
• smoke
• fruit
• spice
• sulfurous roasted depth

Species, origin, fermentation, roast level and brewing all shift the balance.

Roast creates the familiar aroma

Heat drives reactions that generate many of coffee’s characteristic volatile compounds. That is why an unroasted green coffee seed smells much less like the cup most people identify as “coffee.”

This also means a perfume’s coffee note may aim at espresso, roasted beans, sweet café coffee or green coffee—quite different olfactory targets.

Natural extract versus coffee accord

Coffee absolutes and CO2 extracts exist, but perfumes also reconstruct coffee from roasted, nutty, caramel and sulfurous aroma materials.

A coffee smell therefore does not by itself establish that natural coffee extract is present.