THÉOBROMA PARFUMS: “Chocolate to Wear,” Created by Koji Tsuchiya and Mayumi Nakata

I would like to be the very first to drape myself in it.
Mayumi Nakata

To wear the aroma of chocolatier Koji Tsuchiya’s chocolate, rather than only taste it: THÉOBROMA PARFUMS was born from that wish. The collaboration between a confectionery maker and Mayumi Nakata, who moved from candles into fragrance design, took form as eaux de parfum in 2024.

At its core is “chocolate to wear.” Combining chocolate’s sweetness and bitterness with fruit, herbs, flowers, and tea creates scenes that go beyond reproducing a single flavor. The different professional paths of the two creators lie behind these fragrances.

Key Facts
The Founders and the Origins of the Brand
The Brand’s Approach
References

Key Facts

Perfumes introduced: February 2024, Japan
Collaborators: Koji Tsuchiya (chocolatier) and Mayumi Nakata (fragrance magician, responsible for composition)
The confectionery shop behind the brand: Musée du Chocolat Théobroma (opened in 1999 in Tomigaya, Tokyo)
Concept: Chocolate to wear
Official website: THÉOBROMA PARFUMS

The Founders and the Origins of the Brand

Koji Tsuchiya: From Training in France to a Confectionery Shop in Tomigaya

Koji Tsuchiya comes from Shimizu, Shizuoka Prefecture, now part of Shizuoka City. He began working as a pastry chef in 1980 and went to France in 1982. After training at La Maison du Chocolat, Dalloyau, and other establishments, he returned to Japan in 1987. He served as chef at La Pomme Verte in Daikanyama, then returned to France in 1991 to study under Michel Chaudun for six months.

He left the company where he worked in 1998, advised pastry shops and undertook other work, then established Théobroma in January 1999. In March of the same year, he opened its main shop in Tomigaya, Shibuya-ku. He now had a place of his own in which to develop the confectionery-making experience he had gained in France.

In Tsuchiya’s confectionery, both the character of individual ingredients and their balance when combined matter. In 2016, he explained that making wasabi too strong would simplify the flavor and lose creativity. He also paid attention to differences among cacao origins, valuing an impartial assessment of ingredients.

I buy good ingredients. Even when they are expensive, I do not compromise.
Koji Tsuchiya (on confectionery-making, 2016)

Combining unexpected ingredients while treating each one carefully: the world of a chocolatier who had brought these two approaches together would later meet Nakata’s fragrance-making.

Mayumi Nakata: From the Forms of Candles to Fragrance Design

After working in apparel at Onward Kashiyama, Mayumi Nakata launched the candle brand SWATi in 1998. At first, Nakata continued making and selling candles while holding part-time jobs. As select shops began carrying them, Nakata received increasing requests to add fragrance to the candles.

A turning point in Nakata’s serious engagement with fragrance came with the UN DOUZE series in the summer of 2004. Nakata developed themes around the number twelve, including birthstones, women, sweets, zodiac signs, messages, and cocktails. Talking about creativity with the staff each day, making candles, and researching the market: pursuing fragrance became part of Nakata’s work in color and form.

I pursued fragrance and engaged with it.
Mayumi Nakata (reflecting in 2026 on the work in 2004)

Nakata learned from perfumers and expanded fragrance work beyond candles into commissions from companies. In time, alongside visible design, Nakata came to want to make products over the long term that had stories and could be spoken about in words.

In 2019, Nakata stepped down as director of SWATi after long involvement and launched 5W1H (in Japanese). Nakata continued making work by sketching fragrance images and translating imagined ideas into combinations of scents. At THÉOBROMA PARFUMS, Nakata would regard Tsuchiya’s chocolate as an “invisible garment.”

In 2024, a Collaboration with a Chocolatier Becomes Perfume

What Nakata entrusted to the collaboration with Tsuchiya was a wish to personally wear the fragrances the chef composed. Tsuchiya’s chocolate provided the inspiration, and Nakata constructed the scents. Their first project bringing together the work of taste and smell was THÉOBROMA PARFUMS in February 2024.

That autumn, the brand made its first appearance at Salon de Parfum at Isetan Shinjuku. There, “Banane au Chocolat” was commercialized following the response to a fragrance distributed at the spring launch event. The scent took chocolate-covered banana as its theme, and visitors had asked for it to become a product.

A program was also arranged for Tsuchiya to introduce the chocolates that had inspired the perfumes at the venue. By offering an experience of edible chocolate alongside wearable fragrance, it sought to convey the starting point of the collaboration to users.

The Brand’s Approach

Chocolat orange: Combining Fruit and Bitterness

THÉOBROMA PARFUMS’ fragrances center on gourmand notes and chocolate. “Gourmand” describes scents reminiscent of food, such as confections and drinks. Here, flowers and herbs are also layered with chocolate to change the form of its sweetness.

Chocolat orange takes the orangette as its subject, depicting in fragrance the combination of candied orange peel coated in chocolate. Sweetness recalling cacao and rum is combined with fresh orange and the depth of bitter chocolate, accented by the aroma of coffee.

Rather than putting sweet chocolate alone in the foreground, the fragrance layers the brightness of fruit, an alcohol-like complexity, and the mild bitterness of coffee. It translates the contrasts experienced when tasting a confection into the expression of a fragrance worn on the body.

Tisane: Moving from Herbs to Black Tea and Chocolate

Tisane is a fragrance themed around selected herbal tea. Its scene moves from a misty forest in the early morning to afternoon tea later in the day.

Impressions of lemon, peppermint, and oolong tea are layered with herbs including lavender and rosemary, leading into black tea, chocolate, and white chocolate. Before approaching the sweetness of confectionery, the composition allows time for impressions of clear greenery and freshly picked herbs.

While Chocolat orange depicts a combination of confections, Tisane portrays time spent enjoying tea and chocolate. Keeping chocolate at its core while changing the path toward sweetness demonstrates the brand’s expressive range.

Madagascar: Layering Flowers and Chocolate

Madagascar takes longing for the plants and landscapes of a distant land as its theme. Floral scents centered on ylang-ylang and jasmine are combined with bitter chocolate and an impression of linden. The layering of flowers and chocolate depicts a scene reminiscent of an avenue of baobabs at sunset.

Chocolate can stand for a confection on the table, or be placed deep within a scene of forests and flowers. Starting from Tsuchiya’s confectionery world, Nakata layers images of time and landscape. This is the form of a collaboration that keeps “chocolate to wear” from being confined to a single sweet fragrance.