Cardamom
Warm, sweet peppery spice with a cool, slightly lemony freshness.
You may know it from Freshly crushed cardamom pods in chai or curry
Where it comes from
Steam-distilled oil from the seeds of cardamom plants.
About cardamom
Perfumery cardamom is the seed of Elettaria cardamomum, taken from small spindle-shaped pods, and the oil is steam-distilled from those seeds. How much oil a batch gives depends on whom you ask. One source says 2 to 5% of the seed weight, another 4.5 to 9.6%.
Two molecules dominate it. 1,8-cineole is cool, fresh and eucalyptus-like, and alpha-terpinyl acetate is warm and sweet. Reported shares vary with source, variety, plant part and origin. One set of analyses puts cineole at 20 to 50% and terpinyl acetate around 30%, while a Saudi-sourced sample was led by cineole at 42.6%, with alpha-pinene and terpinyl acetate behind it. Scentspiracy describes the oil opening sharp, camphoraceous and eucalyptus-like, then turning warm-spicy and balsamic-woody, and ending sweet and woody. A perfumery glossary uses it as a top-to-heart modifier that bridges citrus brightness and woody depth, giving lift without heaviness.
Guatemala overtook India as the leading producer around 1979-80, and one trade report puts its output near 35,000 tonnes a year, about 70% of it from Alta Verapaz. The glossary says a German coffee planter introduced the crop there before WWI. Guatemalan and southern Indian (Malabar, Mysore) oils are the ones most valued in perfumery. The glossary calls Kerala cardamom finer, with more alpha-terpinyl acetate, though Guatemala wins on volume, and a supplier quoted by The Good Scents Company calls the Guatemalan oil the most penetrating, fresh and volatile of the origins. Prices move a lot. Overproduction in 2012-13 pushed international prices down, and cardamom is still Guatemala's fourth-largest agricultural export by value.
Perfumers can also buy a CO2 extract, which sources describe as fuller and longer lasting than the distilled oil. IFF calls it intensely spicy and metallic, and one supplier lists its Select grade as less cineolic than the essential oil. The Good Scents Company also lists a separate cardamom oil replacer among its materials.
Valerius Cordus is credited with documenting cardamom oil distillation in 1540. It is often ranked the third most expensive spice, after saffron and vanilla.
Accords it shows up in
How many of the fragrances listing Cardamom in our catalogue also carry each accord. We counted this ourselves.
Often paired with
The notes that appear next to Cardamom most often in our catalogue.
Well-known fragrances with Cardamom
Fragrances that list it in their notes, most-rated first.
Houses that use it most
Ranked by how many of their well-known fragrances list Cardamom.