Affogato

Note Profile

Prepared

About

Affogato is a gourmand note built on a shot of hot espresso poured over cold vanilla gelato. Coffee leads on top. Vanilla and cream carry the base. The two are married permanently rather than layered, which is what separates it from a plain coffee note.

Scent Profile

Coffee_cacao and sweet_vanillic are almost level, and that is the dessert. Coffee leads by a hair because the one fragrance source gives it both the top and the middle and calls it 'the bold aroma of freshly brewed espresso'. Sweet_vanillic sits right underneath as the gelato and the vanilla the same source puts in the base: 'smooth sweetness of vanilla', 'Base Notes: Creamy Vanilla'. It is held near the published gelato value of 0.70 because a scoop of gelato is most of the dish by volume. Lactonic is the cold dairy, supported by 'rich, creamy', 'velvety vanilla' and Wikipedia's 'fiordilatte (plain milk-flavored)'. Below, smoky is set for espresso roast char. No affogato source names it and it is inferred from the material, which is why the spread on it is wide.

ScentWheel

Breadthmedium

EnvelopeBase · ~10h lasting

Family Sweet & Gourmand

Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.

Origin

The referent is an Italian dessert, affogato al caffe, which means 'drowned in coffee'. It is a scoop of gelato, either vanilla or plain milk fiordilatte, with espresso poured over it. In perfumery it is a compounded gourmand accord and no manufacturer datasheet publishes it. The only olfactive breakdown reachable for this dossier is a candle fragrance listing that gives fresh brewed coffee on top, rich espresso in the middle and creamy vanilla in the base.

Usage in Perfumery

Used as a base in coffee gourmands where a bare coffee note would read as too dry or too bitter. The dairy and vanilla soften the roast without removing it. It sits with tonka, caramel, milk, hazelnut and vanilla. Liqueur variants of the dessert exist, but no fragrance source found uses them, so it should not be treated as a boozy note.