Your Next Signature Scent Should Be Coffee-Inspired

I am not a coffee drinker. Never have been. The taste is too bitter for my liking, and that much caffeine will just keep me up all night, no matter what time of day I drink it. And coffee breath . . . But the smell of an actual cup of coffee? It’s divine. Rich. Sophisticated. And perfect for personal fragrance.

Perfumers include coffee notes in fragrance by using gourmand accords made from roasted coffee beans, espresso extracts, or aromatic molecules that mimic those smells. If you read through the scent notes on your favorite coffee cologne, you might notice something called “Coffee CO2 extract”—that’s a concentrated aromatic and bioactive oil created by passing supercritical carbon dioxide through roasted coffee beans. Pretty cool, right?

But coffee notes don’t always smell the same. Roasted coffee beans or espresso can smell dark and dry with a slightly bitter and earthy quality, whereas sweeter coffee notes like mocha and latte scents can be warm, milky, and rich. It also, of course, depends on what other notes are mixed in, from woody and earthy scents to sweet, gourmand ones. To give you an idea of the range, we rounded up the best coffee-scented colognes out there.

You’ll see plenty of pricey bottles on this list. We will get cerebral about perfume—men’s and women’s is a dumb distinction for scent. We will try to push you toward something interesting. But before all that, we have to pay respects. You might call Polo Red, first released in 2013, a garden-variety mall fragrance, something catering to the everyman. That is not our opinion. For us, considering the price point, it’s a modern classic.

Polo Red is a bit more interesting than your typical guy fragrance. It blends fresh, fruity notes of grapefruit, lemon, and cranberry with warm, rich notes of redwood, amber, and coffee. Add in earthy sage and woods and you get a really interesting combination that goes from bright and airy to deep and sensual thanks to the base notes of coffee, which blend beautifully with the warm woods and amber.

Fragrance Family: Earthy, woody, citrus

Notes: Grapefruit, lemon, cranberry, red saffron, lavender, sage, redwood, amber, coffee

Sizes: 1.35 oz, 2.5 oz, 4.2 oz, 6.7 oz

As always, Loewe delivers on its luxury fragrance—even the bottle looks like something you’d find in a museum. Like Polo Red, Loewe’s Wild Coffee brings together fruity notes and coffee, but instead of relying on light citrus fruits, it has notes of ripe mango, bitter orange, guava, and passion fruit, which provide a juicy, tropical backdrop for the rich coffee, amber, and tonka bean to come through.

Fragrance Family: Fruity, spicy, gourmand

Notes: Mango, bitter orange, Italian bergamot, cinnamon, Guatemalan cardamom, guava, saffron, passionfruit, caramel, amber, benzoin, akigalawood, Indonesian patchouli, coffee, Venezuelan roasted tonka bean, vanilla CO2 extract, Loewe accord, oud

Sizes: 3.4 oz

It’s ridiculous how good Bois Corsé is. It’s a simple fragrance that captures “the textured outer layer of a tree.” Meaning, bark.

The notes are coffee, sandalwood, and tonka bean. The coffee is deep and chocolatey. The sandalwood gives it an earthiness, a bit of air and smoke. The tonka bean grounds it all in a warm, user-friendly base. It’s a masterclass, really. Straight down the middle and sure to get compliments

Fragrance Family: Woody

Notes: Coffee, sandalwood, tonka bean

Sizes: 3.4 oz

The coffee note is not as pronounced here, as this is a busy fragrance. You get Davana on top—an herb from the southern portion of the Indian subcontinent, which in perfume form presents green and herby but also a bit boozy, like a nice cordial. Like in most of these other scents, there’s a warm tonka note that pairs with the coffee. The oud is not a boring smoky presentation, but a pretty earthy one.

The overall experience is, as the name might suggest, a busy street corner in a tropical climate. There’s a lot going on, but it’s all working well together—a really captivating scent.

Fragrance Family: Woody, spicy

Notes: Davana, coffee, tonka bean, labdanum, sandalwood, agarwood

Sizes: 1.7 oz, 3.4 oz

In September, DedCool launched its new viral fragrance, Mocha Magic. It’s a gourmand through and through, but it creates some intrigue by contrasting bittersweet notes of espresso, mocha, and bourbon with more classically sweet notes of cream, biscotti, toffee, and vanilla. In a word: Mmmm.

Fragrance Family: Gourmand, spicy

Notes: Espresso, mocha, cream, biscotti, toffee, bourbon, vanilla, tonka bean, sandalwood

Sizes: 0.5 oz, 1.7 oz

Speaking of gourmands, Maison Margiela’s Replica collection includes the perfect sweet and spicy take on coffee. It emphasizes the scents of warm coffee, milk mousse, and sweet vanilla at its base, but before we get there, it’s actually quite fresh and uplifting thanks to lemon, lavender, and spearmint. So you get a bit of citrus and herbal freshness before leaning into the rich gourmand of it all.

Fragrance Family: Gourmand

Notes: Coffee, red apple, lemon, lavender, spearmint, orange flower, milk mousse, sandalwood, cedarwood, vanilla, musk

Sizes: 3.4 oz

Dolce & Gabbana’s Devotion for Men will surely turn you on to coffee scents. Warm, sensual, and woody, it highlights herbal lavender, dark coffee, and smooth woods, with an earthy backdrop of oakmoss. It’s a solid, elegant pick for a nice dinner or an evening out.

Fragrance Family: Earthy, woody

Notes: Lavender, black pepper, lemon coffee, cypress, guaiac wood, Madagascar vanilla, oakmoss

Sizes: 0.33 oz, 1.6 oz, 3.3 oz

Now here’s a combination you probably weren’t expecting: refined rose and spicy coffee. As it turns out, light florals go really nicely with black coffee, and it’s a cool contrast you really don’t find anywhere else. And, in classic Tom Ford fashion, there’s a bit of smoky frankincense at the base that gives the fragrance a dark and sexy twist.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Turkish rose, black coffee, Bulgarian rose, patchouli, cardamom, coriander, ylang ylang, frankincense, sandalwood

Sizes: 0.34 oz, 1 oz, 1.7 oz, 3.4 oz

Coffee and woods make sense together, and when notes of roasted coffee beans are combined with a variety of different woods, it makes for something smooth and sophisticated. That’s what Roja does here. The nutty side of coffee is brought out by notes of cinnamon, pistachio, and caramelized nuts, while cedarwood, sandalwood, oud, and dry woods emphasize its deeper, drier side.

Fragrance Family: Amber, woody

Notes: Orange blossom, rose, violet, cinnamon, roasted coffee beans, pistachio, caramelized nuts, patchouli, mosses, saffron, coconut, cedarwood, sandalwood, aoud wood, dry woods, cypriol, tonka bean, vanilla, milk, benzoin, cashmeran, leather, birch, musks

Sizes: 1.7 oz

Inspired by the Italian dessert affogato—hot espresso poured over vanilla ice cream—Mancera’s Amore Caffe blends delicious gourmand notes of amaretto liqueur, vanilla ice cream, speculoos, and brown sugar with black coffee to give it that addictive bittersweet quality.

Fragrance Family: Gourmand

Notes: Black coffee, amaretto liqueur, vanilla ice cream, hint of speculoos, vanilla pods, brown sugar, ambergris

Sizes: 2 oz, 4 oz

Sweet, spicy, and woody, Kilian’s Intoxicated is another beloved coffee scent, though it’s definitely a strong one. So if you want something bold, this is a good pick. The unique mix of dark mocha coffee with green cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vetiver gives it a rich, sexy, and spicy intrigue.

Fragrance Family: Gourmand, spicy

Notes: Green cardamom oil and absolute, dark mocha coffee, powdered cinnamon, hallucinogenic nutmeg, vanilla, vetiver, caramelized sugar

Sizes: 1.7 oz

This story originally appeared on Esquire.com.

ALSO READ

The 11 Best Tobacco Colognes for Men

The 11 Most Sophisticated Colognes a Man Could Wear