2-furfurylthiol

roasted thiol Key food odorant

Found in 20 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C5H6OS
Molecular weight: 114.17 g/mol
PubChem CID: 7363 — 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.

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

Properties

Odor description: coffee, roasted, sulfury
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 0.004 ppb – 0.009 ppb median 0.005 ppb · 3 published values · see all 12 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 98-02-2

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.

Also filed as

2-furanmethanethiol furfuryl mercaptan

Same molecule, unified here — previously counted and displayed as separate compounds.

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.

coffee, roasted, sulfury shown above Flavornet Cas, Flavornet Name, FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 4 sources agree

roasted FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

coffee aroma FlavorDB 2.0

coffee aroma, roasted coffee FlavorDB 2.0

sulfury-roasty-smelling, roasty-sulfury FlavorDB 2.0

coffee-like FlavorDB 2.0

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

12 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

0.004 ppb – 0.009 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.004 ppb	water-alcohol solution (food: coffee, meat, sesame seeds)	Literature corpus	—
0.005 ppb	water_odor	Leffingwell	—
0.009 ppb SIDA	water	Rychlik 1998 · 2 studies	—

In a food matrix

0.005 ppb – 0.036 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.005 ppb	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	—
0.010 ppb	water (food: coffee)	Literature corpus	—
0.036 ppb	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	—

Retronasal / in-mouth

0.005 ppb – 0.040 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.005 ppb SIDA	water_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
0.040 ppb	water_flavor	Leffingwell	—

In air

5e-06 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
5e-06 ppb	air (food: coffee)	Literature corpus	—

Other matrix

0.100 ppb – 0.400 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.100 ppb SIDA	starch	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
0.300 ppb SIDA	cellulose	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
0.400 ppb SIDA	oil_orthonasal	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.

Where you'd actually smell it

Odor Activity Value = measured concentration ÷ odor threshold (0.0085 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 12 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
wine	1000.0	117647 ⚡	Corpus paper
baijiu	19.1	2247 ⚡	PMID 36263305
lard	0.5	58.8 ⚡	PMID 25036492
grape	0.1	7.06	PMID 31645942
lime	0.0	0.12	PMID 41267287

Concentrations from PubMed Central Open Access papers (free literature corpus, MIT-style licensed). Copper = OAV ≥ 10 (strongly perceptible). Green = OAV ≥ 1 (perceptible).

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain 2-furfurylthiol. 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 2-furfurylthiol in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

wine

measured · OAV 117647.06

565 cmpds

baijiu

measured · OAV 2247.06

201 cmpds

73 cmpds

79 cmpds