Tonka beans are about the size of a butter bean and are found on a very large tropical tree having big elliptical leaves and violet flowers. The beans ( called 'rumara' by the locals ) are collected and dried, then soaked in rum for 12 to 15 hours to make them swell up. After removal from the soaking bath they become dried and shrivelled with a coating of white powder ( crystallised coumarin ). After the 'curing' process the beans appear to be 'frosted'. They are then shipped to processing plants in Europe and the U.S.A.
A concrete and absolute are produced by solvent extraction of the 'cured' beans.
Dipteryx odorata
Family : Leguminosae
Also Known As : Tonquin Bean, Dutch Tonka Bean, Coumarouna odorata
'Taquin butter' is the fatty extract of the beans used to kill moths in linen cupboards in the Netherlands.
Native to South America ( Venezuela, Guyana and Brazil ).
Cultivated in Nigeria and West Africa.
Most processing is carried out in Europe and the U.S.A.
Coumarin 20% to 40%
Yellow or amber.
Rich, warm, sweet herbaceous-nutty odour
None !!!
Coumarin is an oral and dermal toxin. Tonka bean oil should not be used for any aromatherapy treatments of any kind.
Insecticidal and narcotic. Fatal in large doses.
Used to some extent as a pharmaceutical masking agent. The absolute is employed as a fixative and fragrance component in some perfumes. It is now banned as a flavouring compound but still appears in some tobacco products.