3-ethylphenol

spicy phenol Key food odorant

Found in 9 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C8H10O
Molecular weight: 122.16 g/mol
PubChem CID: 12101 — 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: phenolic.

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

Properties

Odor description: must
Odor threshold — in a food matrix: 0.050 ppb – 1.7 ppb median 0.475 ppb · 6 published values · see all 7 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 620-17-7
Retention index: 1169

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

3-ethyl-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.

must shown above Flavornet Cas

—

phenolic, leather-like FlavorDB 2.0

ginger, chili FlavorDB 2.0

must, musty FlavorDB 2.0

smoky/phenolic FlavorDB 2.0

ashy 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

7 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.

In a food matrix

0.050 ppb – 1.7 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.050 ppb	water (food: beef vegetable gravy)	Literature corpus	—
0.050 ppb	water (food: pork vegetable gravy)	Literature corpus	—
0.100 ppb	water (food: rice)	Literature corpus	—
0.850 ppb	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	—
1.7 ppb	water (food: smoked cooked loin (pork))	Literature corpus	—
600 ppb	water (food: longjing green tea infusion)	Literature corpus	—
Flagged: 1263× 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

0.050 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.050 ppb SIDA	water_retronasal	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 (0.475 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 7 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
cocoa	7.7	16.1 ⚡	Corpus paper
red wine	4.0	8.42	Corpus paper

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 3-ethylphenol. 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 3-ethylphenol in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

484 cmpds

36 cmpds

101 cmpds

139 cmpds