The scent of coffee is a memory, a realization of adult things and adult responsibilities as they intersect with the daily cycle of childhood. The scent has meaning without relationship to the consumption of coffee. Finally drinking coffee can be a revelation or a disappointment, perhaps with the bitterness of over-roasted, rancid, low-quality coffee. If coffee has become a part of your adult life, those initial memories of the scent and the passage of time are overlaid with the other senses of taste and touch as well as the many contexts of coffee rituals.

Coffee is not widely used as a perfume ingredient, but cold-pressed and CO2 extractions are now available, are soluble in fixed carrier oils, but not in alcohol.

Check out our Top 10 Coffee Perfumes.

Coffee Aromatic Properties and Chemical Composition

A headspace analysis (sampling volatile compounds in the air) of brewed arabica beans published in 2008 described 10 odor categories with 1-10 chemical compounds associated with each grouping. These compounds will not all be present in any extraction, so you can’t buy a coffee product that will smell like roasted and brewed coffee.

Acidic: Isovaleric acid is described as sour, sweaty, cheesy, tropical. This is not the acid of citrus, but a soft-ripened cheese.

Buttery/oily: The headspace analysis identified a range of aldehydes contributing to the fatty/oily scent. Isovaleraldehyde has a chocolate, peach, fattiness in addition to characteristic aldehyde fattiness. Cis-2-nonenal has a powdery, orris-like fattiness with hints of cucumber. Trans-2,cis-6-nonadienal has a drier, melon, green fattiness. Diacetyl is buttery, sweet, creamy, and caramelic.

Green/blackcurrant: Having never smelled this compound, we are having a hard time linking 3-mercapto-3-methylbutyl formate and its description in TGSC as sulfurous, catty caramelised onion; roast coffee, roast meat, with a tropical nuance to the green/blackcurrant the authors provide.

Green/earthy: Bean pyrazine smells of green pea, earthy, chocolate nuttiness which is augmented with the more green bell pepper and galbanum scent of 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine. We have not smelled either chemical as they are hard to come by. They are sold at Pell Wall in the UK.

Nutty/roasty: 1‐(3,4‐Dihydro‐2H‐pyrrol‐5‐yl)‐ethanone has a popcorn, roasty malty scent. There are a number of pyrazine compounds that in a delicate balance create nutty/roasty instead of burnt. 2-ethyl-3,5(or 6)-dimethyl pyrazine has a burnt coffee roasted woody scent.

Phenolic: Ortho-guaiacol has a phenolic, smoky, woody, meaty, vanilla scent. Ethyl-guaiacol has a spicy, smoky, bacon scent with hints of sweet clove.

Smoke/roast: 3-methyl-2-butane thiol provides sulfurous, burnt rubber, roasted chicken, pork, and beef. The scent of 2‐Furanemethanethiolis is described as roasted coffee, sulfurous, burnt savory meaty chicken, and onion.

Soy sauce: Methional is described as creamy tomato, potato skin, yeasty, bready, with a savory meaty brothy nuance

Sweet/caramel: A range of furanones, such as strawberry furanone, lend caramel, cotton candy, and fruity notes.

Sweet fruity: Linalool provides a fresh, floral, citrus, orange note. (E)-beta-damascenone is rosy, apple, fruity, honey, tobacco.