Cafe Oud 2023

Michael has released his Love Language series built around some of his favorite materials, but Cafe Oud might be my love language. I’ll start by getting this part out of the way — AdS is a brand that represents a side of independent perfumery that I appreciate most: loads of the finest naturals, house-made concentré and tinctures, all incorporated into fragrances that are evocative of classic perfumery yet distinctly modern. Their prices truly are fair when considering the amount and cost of naturals used. Cafe Oud achieves something that no other coffee/oud scent has been able to deliver: true, long-lasting notes of coffee and oud, courtesy of overdoses of both the bean’s CO2 extract and the wood’s essential oil. A dash of cardamom brings Vietnamese coffee to mind. Over a period of several hours, a base of warm labdanum and tonka bean absolute begins to emerge, while oud, coffee, and amber remain noticeable for the entirety of the drydown. My only qualm with this fragrance is Fragrantica’s ordering of scent profiles. If you’re searching for “warm spicy” (listed as the primary olfactive family at the time of writing) or “vanilla” (listed secondary), look elsewhere. This is dark, rich, somewhat bitter, and full-bodied. It makes me question if anyone on the Fragrantica team had evaluated this fragrance prior to assigning its scent profile. Excellent job as usual, Michael — keep up the great work!