Tonka bean

Tonka is the bean that smells of a summer barn. Its wrinkled black seeds are cured until they frost over with white crystals of coumarin, and they smell of new hay, bitter almond, tobacco and warm vanilla all at once. It is the material that made the fougère possible, and it is the warmth at the heart of one of my chapters.

What tonka bean is

Tonka beans are the seeds of Dipteryx odorata, a tall tree of the forests of northern South America. The beans are gathered, dried and cured, traditionally in rum, until coumarin crystallises on their surface. Coumarin is the molecule of fresh cut hay and sweet almond, and tonka is its richest natural source. Our tonka is an absolute, solvent extracted from the cured beans, which captures not only the coumarin but the tobacco, dried fruit and caramel depth around it.

Where our tonka bean comes from

Ours comes from Venezuela, where the tonka tree grows wild in the forests of the Orinoco basin and the beans are gathered by hand from the forest floor by the communities that live there. Venezuela is one of the historic sources of tonka, and the wild beans of its forests are prized for a full, rich curing that gives an absolute of exceptional depth. The heat and humidity of the forest are part of the curing itself, and the Venezuelan bean carries them.

How tonka bean smells

Hay, almond, tobacco, warm and sweet. It opens with the green sweetness of hay and a bitter almond edge, then deepens into tobacco, caramel and a soft vanilla warmth that lasts for hours.

Tonka bean in our chapter

• VChérie OudThe Trunk · in the heart

  In Chérie Oud it sits at the centre of the heart beside vanilla and clove, the hay and almond warmth that makes the trunk of the tree smell like something slowly baked in wood.

A note from the atelier

Tonka and vanilla together can become a dessert, and I did not want a dessert. In Chérie Oud the clove and the rosemary keep them honest, and the tonka becomes hay in a barn rather than sugar in a bowl.

Questions about tonka bean