Tonka Bean Absolute Brazil
Tonka Bean Absolute has a strong, indulgent fragrance with powdery, almond and vanilla notes. These gourmand notes are nuanced by dry, woody and tobacco facets.
Tonka Bean Absolute is an essential component of amber and oriental accords. Its distinctive facets make it perfect for tobacco or fougère accords.
The tonka bean tree (Dipteryx odorata) grows on the banks of the Amazon rivers. It is 20 to 30 metres high, has a red trunk, a kind of teak, large leaves and very fragrant flowers that bloom between December and April. The fruit has the shape of a large almond and contains a single bean that wrinkles as it dries, the tonka bean, also called ‘cumaru’ in Brazil. They appear from May to September.
In Brazil, harvesting takes place mainly between August and September, when the ripe fruits have fallen to the ground. They are picked by hand. The shell is then broken either with a stone or a hammer to extract the beans, a technique called ‘pisado’. The recovered beans are then dried in the shade and then in the sun, before being immersed in containers of strong alcohol at 65° for 24 hours. The beans are then left to dry for the next five to six days, during which time they develop a beautiful white glaze as small coumarin crystals form on the outer layer.
When the beans are ready, we transform them first into concrete and then into Absolute through solvent extraction.
The first users of tonka beans were cigarette manufacturers in the mid-19th century, who incorporated the warm aroma of the seed into their tobacco. But it was the perfume industry that turned it into a luxury product.
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