Cuban Cedar

Note Profile

Botanical

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About

Cuban cedar is the wood of Cedrela odorata, the tree also sold as Spanish cedar or cedro. It is not a true cedar. It smells dry, woody and faintly resinous, close enough to true cedarwood that the trade borrowed the name. Perfumery knows it mainly as the cigar-box wood: the dry aromatic wood a Habano is stored in.

Scent Profile

Cuban Cedar smells dry and woody, close enough to true cedarwood that the trade borrowed its name, though the tree is unrelated. A faint resinous note runs through the heartwood. It carries a dry, herbal edge rather than sweetness, and it is best known as the aromatic wood a cigar box is lined with.

ScentWheel

Breadthmedium

EnvelopeBase · ~18h lasting

Family Woody & Earthy

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ScentArt

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Origin

Heartwood of Cedrela odorata (Meliaceae), a tree of the Caribbean and tropical America. The heartwood carries an aromatic, insect-repelling resin, which is where the name Spanish-cedar comes from. GC-MS of the wood oil (The Pharma Innovation Journal, 2018) found it dominated by sesquiterpene hydrocarbons: delta-cadinene at 26 to 53 per cent, with beta-curcumene and calarene. That is a different chemistry from the cedrol-rich oils of Cedrus and Juniperus.

Usage in Perfumery

Used as a dry woody base and as the wood half of cigar and tobacco accords. It is the cedar element in a Cuban cigar accord, where it supplies the dry cedar-box opening under the fermented leaf. It is also the timber of clothing chests and wardrobes, and that stored-linen association is part of what a perfumer is buying.