Notes 101 · 3 min · 10 Oct 2026
Notes 101: what is tonka bean?
Tonka beans look like shrivelled raisins and smell like vanilla, almond and warm hay all at once.
The note comes from coumarin, the same molecule you smell in freshly cut grass. Perfumers use it to make sweetness feel softer and more grown-up.
Where you’ll meet it
In 9PM it rounds off the amber. In Tonquin Giza it is the whole point.
