Katsura Wood

Note Profile

Botanical 1 perfume

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About

Burnt-sugar sweetness over a faint pale wood.

Scent Profile

Katsura Wood smells of burnt sugar and caramel first, close to toffee or candyfloss. A faint pale wood sits underneath it, light rather than heavy or dark. The sweetness carries a toasted, toffee-like warmth, with the wood itself staying quiet and barely there beneath the sugar.

ScentWheel

Breadthmedium

EnvelopeBase · ~10h lasting

Family Sweet & Gourmand, Woody & Earthy

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

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ScentArt

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Materials That Can Make This Note

Perfumers can build Katsura Wood from materials such as:

Maltol berry · caramellic · jammy

Smell words come from published sources.

A given perfume with this note may use this material, or something else.

Origin

Katsura is Cercidiphyllum japonicum, a Japanese tree whose German and French common names, Kuchenbaum and arbre a caramel, both name the smell. The cause is agreed: maltol, released as the complex sugars in the tissue break down. The strong sources describe the leaves in autumn decay. One timber reference describes the wood itself as smelling of burnt sugar or caramel.

Usage in Perfumery

A base wood in niche and indie work. Parfumo attests the term on 5 fragrances across 5 brands and Fragrantica on none, which is the signature of a term coming from independent perfumer copy rather than mainstream releases. Whether what is sold as katsura wood is timber-derived or a compounded caramel-woody accord named after the tree is not established.