FAMILY: Leguminosae
SYNONYMS: Coumarouna odorata, tonquin bean, Dutch tonka bean.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION: A very large tropical tree with big elliptical leaves and violet flowers, bearing fruit which contain a single black seed or ‘tonka bean’, about the size of a butter bean. The beans, known as ‘rumara’ by the natives, are collected and dried, then soaked in alcohol or rum for twelve to fifteen hours to make them swell. When they are removed from the bath they become dried and shrunken, covered in a whitish powder of crystallized coumann.
The ‘curing’ of the beans is partly a conventional ‘sales promotion’ technique rather than an indication of quality, since the frosted appearance has come to be expected of the product.
DISTRIBUTION: Native to South America, especially Venezuela, Guyana and Brazil; cultivated in Nigeria and elsewhere in West Africa. Most beans come from South America after ‘curing’, to be processed in Europe and the USA.
OTHER SPECIES: There are many species of Dipteryx which produce beans suitable for extraction.
HERBAL/FOLK TRADITION: In Holland the fatty substance from the beans is sold as ‘tarquin butter’, which used to be used as an insecticide against moth in linen cupboards. ‘The fluid extract has been used with advantage in whooping cough, but it paralyses the heart if used in large doses.’.
ACTIONS: Insecticidal, narcotic, tonic (cardiac).
EXTRACTION: A concrete and absolute by solvent extraction from the ‘cured’ beans.
CHARACTERISTICS: The absolute is a semi-solid yellow or amber mass with a very rich, warm and sweet herbaceous-nutty odour. It blends well with lavender, lavandin, clary sage, styrax, bergamot, oakmoss, immortelle and citronella.
PRINCIPAL CONSTITUENTS: Mainly coumarin (20–40 per cent) in the absolute.
SAFETY DATA: Oral and dermal toxin, due to high coumarin content.
AROMATHERAPY/HOME: USE None.
OTHER USES: Used to a limited extent as a pharmaceutical masking agent. The absolute is employed as a fixative and fragrance component in oriental, new-mown hay and chypres-type perfumes. It is no longer used as a flavouring (due to the coumarin ban in many countries), though it is still used to flavour tobacco.
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