Atralia Matcha Latte 100ml: What It Smells Like

Atralia Matcha Latte is a 100ml eau de parfum that smells of warm milk and vanilla. Vanilla, milk and anise open it. Toffee, liquorice and sugar fill the middle. Tonka bean, more vanilla and musk close it.

There is no matcha in it. Not a trace of green tea anywhere in the composition, which is worth knowing before you buy it for that reason.

The short version

• What it is: A 100ml eau de parfum, worn by men and women.
• Smells like: Warm milk, vanilla and toffee, with a liquorice edge.
• Character: Sweet, creamy and comforting. A dessert fragrance with no fruit in it.
• Wear it: Autumn and winter, evenings, cold weather, cosy occasions.
• Important: No matcha and nothing green. The name describes the colour, not the smell.

Atralia MATCHA LATTE Fragrance Notes:

• Top Notes: Vanilla, Milk, Anise.
• Middle Notes: Sugar, Toffee, Licorice.
• Base Notes: Madagascar Vanilla, Tonka, Musk.

Vanilla is listed twice, once in the top and again in the base. That tells you how much of the fragrance rests on it.

Three of the nine notes are plainly sugar: toffee, sugar and vanilla. Two more are sweet in their own way. Only anise and liquorice pull in the other direction.

Milk as a note is worth explaining. It smells creamy and faintly powdery rather than like fresh milk. That creaminess is what gives this the latte quality the name promises.

What Atralia Matcha Latte smells like

Milk is the first thing you notice, and it is a genuinely creamy, slightly powdery note rather than anything watery. Vanilla sits right beside it from the opening, soft and sweet. Anise arrives underneath with a faint liquorice coolness.

For the first few minutes it smells like a warm milky drink. That part of the name is accurate.

The middle thickens it considerably. Toffee brings a buttery caramelised sweetness and sugar makes it plainly sugary. Liquorice runs through the whole thing with a dark, slightly medicinal edge that stops it being bland.

The finish is simple and warm. Tonka bean adds an almond-like sweetness with a dry hay note, a second vanilla deepens the cream, and musk softens the edges. The drydown stays close and lasts quietly.

There is no matcha in Atralia Matcha Latte

The published note list has no green tea in it, and nothing green at all. What you get is milk, vanilla, toffee, sugar, liquorice, anise, tonka and musk.

So the name describes a drink rather than a smell. A real matcha latte is milky and sweet with a green bitter edge from the tea. This one keeps the milk and the sugar and leaves the tea out.

Anise and liquorice are doing the job the tea would have done. Both are slightly bitter and slightly cooling, so they cut the sugar in roughly the same place matcha would. They taste nothing like it.

Judge it as a milky vanilla gourmand and it is a good one. Judge it as a matcha fragrance and it will disappoint you, which is the only reason this section exists.

Matcha Latte or Lattafa Matcha Swirl?

One of these two actually contains matcha. If that is what you came for, the choice is already made.

Lattafa Matcha Swirl lists matcha cake in its heart, with strawberry on top and white chocolate underneath. The green bitterness is real and it is what keeps the sugar in check. It is the one to buy if you want matcha.

Atralia Matcha Latte has no matcha and no fruit. It is milkier, creamier and more straightforwardly sweet, with liquorice instead of green tea doing the cutting.

Put simply: Matcha Swirl is a matcha dessert, Matcha Latte is a vanilla one with a matcha name. Both are good. Only one does what its name says.

Who should buy Atralia Matcha Latte, and who should not

Buy it if you want a warm milky vanilla for cold weather. It is comforting in the way a hot drink is comforting, and the liquorice keeps it from tasting like plain sugar.

It also suits anyone who likes anise or liquorice notes. Those are uncommon in sweet fragrances and they give this one a character most vanillas do not have.

Do not buy it for the matcha. There is none, and Lattafa Matcha Swirl is the bottle you actually want.

Skip it too if you dislike very sweet fragrances. Three notes here are straight sugar and the liquorice only takes the edge off. This is sweet from start to finish.