Akro Awake Review (Olivier Cresp): My Quick Coffee Fix Bottled

April 5, 2020April 5, 2020

Akro Awake 100 ml, photo by Akro

“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.“ – TS Elliot

Coffee. Ristretto at a cafe in the morning, cappuccino with a croissant around 10 AM, sometimes even five o’clock meetings over coffee and cakes. I miss having coffee, and I’m not talking about merely drinking the dark, aromatic brew. Not the early morning Turkish coffee I make at home, oh no: there’s so much more to having a cup of coffee!

I miss sacred rituals involved, sun-lit terraces of my home town, chit-chat with friends over a cup of coffee, Saturday mornings spent going to open market and sitting for a cup of coffee afterward with shopping bags around us, a mix of seasonal flowers, fruits, and vegetables. Smiles and sunglasses on and everyday worries off. A quality of life measured by having coffee, social-life bonding coffee, one of the primary requirements of happiness!

Coffee Time, Elena Cvjetkovic, photo by Elena Cvjetkovic

Yes, the coffee here is more about a total experience and less about the beverage: you meet with friends over a cup of coffee, discuss business, have meetings, take breaks, flirt or sulk, and you never-ever rush things while having your coffee. I miss that often heard sentence: Let’s grab a cup of coffee together. Sitting close to each other, leaning in, laughing, touching: I feel now like a stray coffee spoon lost somewhere in a remote drawer, and I miss my matching set.

Let’s have coffee together…and I reach for perfume, a simple cup of black coffee is not enough, the accent is on together. My own collection and perfume samples archive became a source of joy, a means of travel in time and to places once visited, now popping up in different memory lanes on different social media, calling my name. Perfume bottles and small vials became doors that lead to those different dimensions, unlocking sweet memories, changing the mood or reshaping the reality around me: the power of closing eyes and letting perfume do the trick!

Pour Some Coffee Over Me, photo by Pexels

Enter Akro Awake for my daily dose of black coffee, my quick fix bottled.

Between fantasy and reality, eyes wide shut: Akro Awake opens with an accord of dark, freshly roasted, slightly bitter coffee beans, and I can almost hear the sound of a coffee grinder, rattling of cups and saucers in my favorite cafe, a hushed murmur of guests inside, the crisp sound of newspaper pages turning early in the morning and muffled traffic noise coming from outside.

I feel familiar scents, sounds, little details, the trained movement of a hand wiping quickly my table clean, and the first whiff of a black coffee ristretto served, touching my nostrils. Bitter luxury tasted before it even touched my lips, a promise of a familiar, good, experienced barista-approved coffee taste.

As the foam of intense caffeine steam dissolves, sweeter tones emerge. Now bitter-sweet, the fragrance shows it addictive side with smooth, nutty and creamy notes of cardamom underneath which a different kind of freshness emerges – just a slight touch of lemon, a brighter facette beneath the surface, feeling almost like one of those delightful coffee & lemon tarts on a fine, crispy crust.

I also feel a distant olfactory sound of tobacco leaves, like somebody opened a humidor in the cafe and rolled a freshly opened, fine cigar between their fingers.

Akro Awake, although an evident gourmand, never oversteps into unnecessary sweetness or cardamom-saturated flatness: depth and richness are felt at all times in this finely blended, highly elegant fragrance. Classy, touched by refined minimalist gourmand nuance Akro Awake is my bitter cup of complicated simplicity of good, dark coffee.

Akro Awake Sample, photo & digital editing by Elena Cvjetkovic for Akro Fragrances

As time passes, after the ristretto evolved in cafe-au-lait, a warm feeling of reassuring vetiver woodiness is soothing and relaxing: of all the addictions offered by Akro, this one is the most comfortable and assuring one for me. And the only way we can grab a cup of coffee together now: through perfume, bonding and connecting us.

#stayathome #staysafe and enjoy your perfumes!

Notes: Balkans Santos Coffee, Green Cardamom, Italian Lemon, Haitian Vetiver

Elena Cvjetkovic, Editor and Author of The Plum Girl

Disclaimer: A 2 ml sample of Akro Awake was kindly provided by Akro Fragrances for my consideration. Opinions and feelings are – as always – of my own.

Akro Sample Box, photo by Elena Cvjetkovic for Akro Fragrances

Available at Akro Fragrances and @luckyscent where you can buy a sample for $4

There is a draw for the discovery set (minus Dark) of five of the six Akro Fragrances in the presentation box, from one of our team members for a registered reader in the USA or EU. You must register here. Please leave a comment about what you think of Elena’s review of Akro Awake. Do you have a favorite Akro fragrance? Draw closes 4/8/2020. No spilled perfume

Nicoleta reviewed Night here, and Despina reviewed Dark here

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