The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Tahuayo arrived in 2025, composed by Erick Montevela for Montevela Parfums. Its name belongs to the Colección Tahuayo, a body of fragrances. The available material gives no further account of the inspiration, so the composition itself offers the clearest introduction: pomegranate, coconut, pecan, red fruits, and apple sit above chocolate, almond, peanut, bonbon, and raspberry. Beneath that sweetness, leather, copal, pine, woody notes, spices, and resins create a darker foundation. The result feels less like a neat dessert and more like something irresistible shared around a well-worn wooden table. Pomegranate and red fruit bring a bright, juicy accent, tempered by the rounder creaminess of coconut and the crispness of apple.
What makes Tahuayo worth discovering is the friction between its materials. Pomegranate, red fruit, and apple supply brightness, while coconut gives the opening a creamy, tropical weight. Pecan and peanut bring toasted, granular depth. Then chocolate and almond turn those flavors darker and richer. The base changes the register entirely: leather and pine add a dry woodland edge, while copal, woody notes, spices, and resins provide warmth and texture. Nothing here behaves like a simple gourmand, even when bonbon and chocolate make the temptation obvious.
The evolution
The opening starts briskly, with pomegranate and red fruits cutting through the creamy softness of coconut. Apple keeps the fruit profile crisp, while pecan adds a toasted, nutty edge almost immediately. That first impression soon turns inward. Chocolate, almond, and peanut take over, joined by bonbon and raspberry for a sweetness that feels rounded rather than airy. As the hours pass, the confectionary warmth gives way to leather, pine, and resin. Woody notes and spices remain, creating a drier, darker trail. The fragrance wears from bright fruit into toasted nuts, then into chocolate, leather, pine, and resin, with each stage revealing a different balance of sweetness and dryness. What lingers is not just sweetness, but the dry contrast that keeps it from becoming syrupy.
Cultural impact
Tahuayo sits within Montevela Parfums' Colección Tahuayo, a collection whose named releases are united by the fragrance house rather than by a stated cultural framework. The scent's identity comes through its material contrasts. Pomegranate, red fruits, and apple add brightness, coconut gives the opening a creamy weight, and pecan and peanut introduce a toasted, granular quality. Chocolate, almond, bonbon, and raspberry deepen the sweetness, while leather, copal, pine, woody notes, spices, and resins create a drier, warmer foundation.
The House
Montevela ParfumsMontevela Parfums is a fragrance house built around the landscapes and cultural references of Mexico, reflected in compositions such as Frezamour, Monarca, Playa Azul, El Patrón, 353, Tahuayo, Limón Mexicano, Tlahualil, and Achón. The house presents its fragrances through expressive names and a clear Mexican frame of reference, from regional ingredients and traditional imagery to contemporary perfume conventions. Its catalog includes releases associated with 2025, suggesting a concentrated effort to develop a recognizable body of work across varied aromatic profiles. Available information identifies Erick Montevela and Manuel Alejandro Bojorquez Segovia as perfumers who collaborated on the fragrances, a point that gives the collection a more specific authorship than the name alone implies.
The Creator
Erick MontevelaMontevela’s style combines an architectural understanding of fragrance with a clear sensitivity to texture. His early work for two of modern perfumery’s most distinctive houses points to a preference for unusual proportions, unexpected contrasts, and compositions that preserve…
