(-)-linalool

floral alcohol Key food odorant

Found in 1 ingredient across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

Look up another compound — search by name, CAS number, PubChem CID, or FEMA #.

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C10H18O
Molecular weight: 154.25 g/mol
PubChem CID: 443158 — full record on PubChem

Key food odorant (intermediary)

Dunkel et al. 2014

Identified in the meta-analysis of 227 food samples as one of 57 intermediary odorants — appears in 5–25% of foods. Characteristic odor: flowery, citrus.

Source: Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2014, 53, 7124–7143

Properties

Odor description: deep, floral, fresh, lavender, natural, woody
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 5.5 ppb – 6.0 ppb median 5.8 ppb · 2 published values · see all 42 with sources
Volatility: medium
CAS number: 78-70-6

Not in FEMA GRAS publications 1-33. Of 3,367 listed flavoring substances, none match this compound name. May still be food-safe under other regulatory routes (FDA 21 CFR 172, EFSA, JECFA) — check femaflavor.org for the authoritative current list.

How this molecule is described

Sources disagree about odour more often than they disagree about chemistry. Rather than show one answer, here is every description on file with how many ingredient records carry it.

Descriptions on file

Ordered by how many independent descriptor streams give each wording, then by how often it appears. The bar is still replication — one source copied onto many ingredients scores high there — so the two can disagree.

deep, floral, fresh, lavender, natural, woody shown above FlavorDB 2.0

green, chemical Flavordb Odor Column

—

Bars are the share of ingredient records carrying each description. High agreement means the sources replicate each other — not necessarily that they are right.

Published thresholds

42 measured values from the literature. Grouped by what was actually measured — a threshold smelled in clean water, tasted in the mouth, or measured in a real food are three different quantities and are not pooled.

Orthonasal, in clean water

5.5 ppb – 6.0 ppb

The reference measurement — smelled in water. OAV is computed against this.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
5.5 ppb SIDA	water	Rychlik 1998 · 2 studies	—
6.0 ppb	water_odor	Leffingwell	—

In a food matrix

0.087 ppb – 500 ppb

Measured in a real food, where the matrix shifts detection — not a clean-water value.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.087 ppb SIDA	water (food: green tea infusion (jingshan cha))	Literature corpus	26501053, 18570373, 32251584 +218
0.087 ppb SIDA	water (food: longjing green tea infusion)	Literature corpus	26501053, 18570373, 32251584 +218
0.100 ppb	water (food: grape)	Literature corpus	15740053, 23122094, 41900883
0.170 ppb SIDA	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	26501053, 18570373, 32251584 +218
0.220 ppb SIDA	water (food: orange juice (reconstituted from concentrate))	Literature corpus	26501053, 18570373, 32251584 +218
0.300 ppb	water (food: honey)	Literature corpus	23341742
0.460 ppb	water (food: lemon)	Literature corpus	31684768, 34136001, 34824643 +3
0.574 ppb	water (food: beer)	Literature corpus	17499755, 33889833
0.580 ppb SIDA	water (food: longjing green tea infusion)	Literature corpus	26501053, 18570373, 32251584 +218
0.750 ppb	water (food: orange)	Literature corpus	37515910
1.0 ppb	water (food: chocolate)	Literature corpus	17898464
1.1 ppb	water (food: fish)	Literature corpus	19241555, 24594176, 36144849 +4
2.7 ppb	water (food: lamb)	Literature corpus	28344493
2.7 ppb SIDA	water (food: longjing green tea infusion)	Literature corpus	26501053, 18570373, 32251584 +218
4.8 ppb	water (food: tomato)	Literature corpus	28050733, 39789073
5.2 ppb	water (food: ginger)	Literature corpus	38802394, 41193520
5.2 ppb	water (food: cocoa)	Literature corpus	36900586, 38005802
6.0 ppb SIDA	water (food: hand-squeezed grapefruit juice)	Literature corpus	26501053, 18570373, 32251584 +218
8.0 ppb SIDA	water (food: rice)	Literature corpus	26501053, 26973621, 38346996 +2
9.0 ppb SIDA	water (food: mushroom)	Literature corpus	26501053, 30022505, 35542441
17.0 ppb SIDA	water (food: tea)	Literature corpus	29376363, 28480362, 32251584 +6
19.5 ppb	water (food: milk)	Literature corpus	41083478
21.0 ppb SIDA	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	32251584, 12467918, 12710722 +218
30.0 ppb SIDA	water (food: smoked cooked loin (pork))	Literature corpus	29376363, 12467918, 12710722 +218
59.0 ppb SIDA	water (food: wine)	Literature corpus	29376363, 22156419, 30270444 +5
84.0 ppb	water (food: soy sauce)	Literature corpus	17898513
87.7 ppb SIDA	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	26501053, 28490131, 18570373 +156
154 ppb SIDA	water (food: cinnamon)	Literature corpus	26501053, 18570373, 32251584 +218
466 ppb	water (food: peach)	Literature corpus	37476402
500 ppb SIDA	water (food: litsea pungens fruit)	Literature corpus	26501053, 18570373, 32251584 +218
575 ppb	water (food: rum)	Literature corpus	24688522, 35454969, 35523852 +3
Flagged: 102× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
1099 ppb	water (food: bread)	Literature corpus	38519512
Flagged: 196× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
1529 ppb SIDA	water (food: beef)	Literature corpus	18570373, 39410216
Flagged: 272× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
2527 ppb SIDA	water (food: blueberry)	Literature corpus	26501053, 18570373, 32251584 +218
Flagged: 450× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.

Retronasal / in-mouth

1.5 ppb

Tasted rather than smelled — a different sense, not comparable.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
1.5 ppb SIDA	water_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—

In air

6.0 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
6.0 ppb SIDA	air (food: reference standard (air))	Literature corpus	26501053, 18570373, 32251584 +218

Other matrix

37.0 ppb – 70.0 ppb

Measured in a non-aqueous medium (oil, starch, cellulose).

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
37.0 ppb SIDA	oil (sunflower oil) (food: cocoa beans)	Literature corpus	26501053, 18570373, 32251584 +218
37.0 ppb SIDA	oil (sunflower oil) (food: cocoa powder)	Literature corpus	26501053, 18570373, 32251584 +218
69.0 ppb SIDA	starch	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
70.0 ppb SIDA	cellulose	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—

Only values we can attribute are listed. Where a compendium's licence does not permit public attribution its figures are omitted here, so every number on this page traces to a citable source.

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain (-)-linalool. Ingredients with a measured concentration come first, ranked by odour activity; the rest follow by how large a share of that ingredient's profile this molecule is. The figure beside each is how many different compounds that ingredient has in total — not the concentration of (-)-linalool in it.

pummelo

fruit citrus

229 cmpds

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