2-methoxy-4-methylphenol

spicy phenol Key food odorant

Found in 32 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C8H10O2
Molecular weight: 138.16 g/mol
PubChem CID: 7144 — full record on PubChem

Key food odorant (individualist)

Dunkel et al. 2014

Identified in the meta-analysis of 227 food samples as one of 151 individualist odorants — appears in <5% of foods, carries the diagnostic signature of specific ingredients. Characteristic odor: smoky, spicy.

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

Properties

Odor description: smoky, clove, spicy, phenolic
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 90.0 ppb 1 published value · see all 2 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 93-51-6

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

✓ Exact match

FEMA number: 2671
GRAS publication: GRAS 3
FEMA primary name: 2-METHOXY-4-METHYLPHENOL

Use-level matrix not extracted for this substance — check the source publication for current ppm guidance.

Source: FEMA GRAS publications 1-33.

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-methoxy-4-methyl-phenol

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.

bacon, bitter, carnation, clove, leather, medical, medicinal, mesquite, phenolic, smoky, spice, vanilla FlavorDB 2.0

clove, carnation, mesquite, bacon, medicinal, smoky, spice, vanilla, phenolic, medical, leather, bitter FlavorDB 2.0

smoky, clove, spicy, phenolic shown above Llm Adjudicated

—

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

2 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

90.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
90.0 ppb	water_odor	Leffingwell	—

Retronasal / in-mouth

65.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
65.0 ppb	water_flavor	Leffingwell	—

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 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol. 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-methoxy-4-methylphenol in it.

7 cmpds

22 cmpds

24 cmpds

33 cmpds