Spicy notes
Woody notes
Amber
Cappucino
Opoponax
Chocolate
Coffee
Iris
Tonka bean05/30/2025
ClaireV
731 Reviews
ClaireV
1
A ferociously real-smelling doppio
I once lived half an hour outside Milan and spent many a happy afternoon wiling away the time in a café with a doppio or five. What nobody tells you about espresso is that there comes a point at which it acts upon your organism like a drug, speeding up your heart rate, and giving you an intense ‘high’ that feels like the peak of euphoria. Nowadays, I work my way up to that point through the pathetic wateriness of cafetière coffee (because I’m not getting any younger). But I’ll be darned if Milano Caffè doesn’t whip me right back to the intoxicating smell of the Milan coffee shop.
Forget the rosy-cream-amber version of coffee presented in Café Rose (Tom Ford) or Intense Café (Montale). Milano Caffè is all about the dark, dusty bitterness of coffee beans, with the ferrous, animalic twang common to both coffee and chocolate. The smell is woody and dry rather than creamy, and overall, rather austere.
In keeping with the authenticity of its coffee accord, Milano Caffè attar is streamlined and shorn of extraneous detail. Those raised on the generosity of mugs of coffee, huge and steaming, might be a little dismayed at Milano Caffè’s lack of lushness or its refusal to tilt towards even a drop of cream or sugar. Instead, Milano Caffè packs an ocean of flavor into a tea-spoonful of liquid, like a real Milanese espresso.
The espresso expression itself is quite brief, but the mirage of coffee-ness is carried over and extended through the scent by linking the woodiness of espresso to the woodiness of the dusty iris and cedar basenotes. Milano Caffè is an interesting scent, and not nearly as gourmand as it sounds. I find it elegant, dark, and a tiny bit fierce.
Forget the rosy-cream-amber version of coffee presented in Café Rose (Tom Ford) or Intense Café (Montale). Milano Caffè is all about the dark, dusty bitterness of coffee beans, with the ferrous, animalic twang common to both coffee and chocolate. The smell is woody and dry rather than creamy, and overall, rather austere.
In keeping with the authenticity of its coffee accord, Milano Caffè attar is streamlined and shorn of extraneous detail. Those raised on the generosity of mugs of coffee, huge and steaming, might be a little dismayed at Milano Caffè’s lack of lushness or its refusal to tilt towards even a drop of cream or sugar. Instead, Milano Caffè packs an ocean of flavor into a tea-spoonful of liquid, like a real Milanese espresso.
The espresso expression itself is quite brief, but the mirage of coffee-ness is carried over and extended through the scent by linking the woodiness of espresso to the woodiness of the dusty iris and cedar basenotes. Milano Caffè is an interesting scent, and not nearly as gourmand as it sounds. I find it elegant, dark, and a tiny bit fierce.
Frankcrummit
