Double Espresso

Smells like opening a bag of instant coffee. Dark, roasted, bitter, and a bit earthy and resinous from the added benzoin and vetiver. 8.7/10. Simple, but very good.

Very similar to Qahwa but its more pure black coffee / coffee bean feel. less sweet and Nutty

This perfume is a must have if you like extremely unique scents, regardless of whether they are wearable or not. As you will have probably read, this perfume has the community divided. I personally think this perfume has its time and place, when used appropriately. This is not a perfume you want to overapply. It is very sharp and strong, and it lacks the classic "elegance" of other curated perfumes. When I explain how this perfume performs you'll understand quickly. First of all, this perfume NEEDS maceration for it to be of any use. Even if it's just 1 or 2 weeks. Failure to macerate after buying results in the extremely unpleasant, synthetic, plastic-like profile that many people have complained about. After maceration, the start notes contain very roasted thai coffee beans (especially southern robusta thai beans carry extreme importance, and I suspect that acidity/bitterness comes from the Siam) and the scent of a freshly brewed double-shot espresso made with those very beans. It's very realistic, but the more perceptive noses will catch a subtle hint of smoke/burnt wood. It is strong, dark, slightly burnt. It wakes you up immediately. Therefore, 1 to 2 sprays max. are recommended, as otherwise the scent will be too overpowering and even distracting to the wearer and the surroundings. The scent has a relatively linear profile for the untrained nose (perhaps from double espresso to a long black unsweetened brew of thai robusta roasted coffee), but it slowly and gradually progresses into a completely different scent altogether as the hours pass by. Approx. after the 4 hour mark, the scent slowly transforms into burnt palosanto/nagchampa/burnt resin incense. Not just any incense, but the classic incense smelled in churches/cathedrals or religious altars. It still carries a subtle hint of sawdust or timber, and a gentle herbal bitterness/acidity. One could compare it to the aftermath notes of the aromatic ashes that remain after the incense finished burning. It is not "hippy", flowery nor cute. It is raw, astringent, spiritual, sovereign, and almost slightly intimidating. Gently esoteric, but sober enough to we worn at work, if sprayed sparingly. It is not a classic perfume. It doesn't even really smell like "perfume". Just like someone who had a strong thai double shot espresso and an authority figure who lights incense regularly. The archetypes that come to mind when smelling this are business CEOs or managers with ascetic values, hard working carpenters who also happen to be the shamans of the town, priests, academic professors who study history and/or metaphysics, or coffee and incense lovers. It also has a lot of potential for coffee gourmands who enjoy layering perfumes. This is particularly fantastic when layered (1 spray only) with 2 sprays of Cafe n' Cream (Fragrance world). It makes the latter fragrance less sugary, and more realistic. The scent becomes a true double shot vanilla latte taken inside a cathedral repurposed as a Café. That being said, as a coffee lover myself, I find this perfume a bit overpowering or distracting for daily use. I still like it a lot and wear it at least once or twice a week.

This one was charity-shop bound, as neither my husband or I liked it much (he said it just smelled as though we had spilled espresso on ourselves). So it has been lurking (and presumably macerating) in the spare room for six months or so. Quite a different beast now! The espresso note up top is more perceptably joined by resins, vetiver and patchouli which make up a much more appealling whole than I remember. In fact it is probably a shade too assertive to play nicely with the new bottle of Lataffa Eclaire which arrived today- which is not to say I will not give layering them a try to see what kind of coffee shop emerges.

This really should have been the first foundational release in the line. It's basically just the bare-bones coffee accord that repeats itself across all of the fragrances in the collection. Pretty boring. Definitely great for the first few seconds, but after that it really just falls flat on a hollow base of slightly grungy smokiness. Essentially no sweetness whatsoever and the coffee accord doesn't even remind me of roasted coffee beans. Might be a good one to layer with in case you feel like adding some "coffee" to gourmands or other sweet frags; but otherwise it wouldn't be out of place in the Demeter lineup. Every other one in the line is more interesting, so for people who already have a couple (myself included), this would be redundant. On the plus side, the pressurized atomizer they gave this one is shockingly amazing, so if you're going to be using it for layering, you can really control the dose. Personally, I might look to the other new releases in the collection that look much more interesting....even though they likely build on the same accord just like the others.