Amburana Wood

Note Profile

Botanical

About

Amburana wood is the timber of Amburana cearensis, the Brazilian tree whose bark carries the same coumarin. The one trade source found describes it as tonka bean and warm wood fused together: a vanilla-almond sweetness sitting on a real timber backbone. It is sweeter than most woods and more structurally wooden than tonka.

Scent Profile

Dry_woody and sweet_vanillic sit almost level, because the source gives them equal billing in one sentence: 'Tonka bean and warm wood fused together'. Dry_woody takes the narrow lead on two further phrases, 'a genuine timber backbone' and 'more structurally wood than tonka bean', which are the only claims in the entry that rank one facet above another. Sweet_vanillic carries 'vanillic' and 'sweeter and more vanillic than most timber notes'. Nutty is 'vanilla-almond sweetness' and 'almond-like', stated twice and directly. Below the line, tobacco_hay is coumarin's hay facet, held low here because this entry never says hay where the bark entry does. Warm_spice is the 'faint cinnamon-adjacent quality', and the source's own word is 'faint'. Amber_resinous comes from 'dry, warm, sweet-woody residue' and nothing stronger. Creamy_woody and powdery are both cut by explicit comparative claims, 'less creamy, more specifically woody' against sandalwood and 'less powdery' against tonka. Both are stated reductions.

ScentWheel

Breadthmedium

EnvelopeBase · ~18h lasting

Family Woody & Earthy, Sweet & Gourmand

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

Origin

Timber of Amburana cearensis, native to northern, eastern and west-central Brazil, north-western Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay. The wood is best known outside perfumery for ageing cachaca, which is where most people meet the smell. Several of the tree's Portuguese names, cumaru and cumare among them, are also names for Dipteryx odorata, the tonka-bean tree. They are different species.

Usage in Perfumery

A base note. It gives a coumarin sweetness that keeps a wood structure, so it can sit where tonka would flatten a composition. It is attested in 3 Fragrantica listings and none on Parfumo, so use is thin.