4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol

spicy phenol Key food odorant

Found in 65 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C9H12O2
Molecular weight: 152.19 g/mol
PubChem CID: 62465 — 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: phenolic, clove-like.

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

Properties

Odor description: smoky, clove, spicy, bacon, phenolic
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 6.9 ppb – 50.0 ppb median 50.0 ppb · 3 published values · see all 11 with sources
Volatility: medium
CAS number: 2785-89-9

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

4-ethyl-2-methoxy phenol 4-ethyl-2-methoxy-phenol 4-ethylguaiacol

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.

spicy, smoky, clove, bacon Flavornet Cas

—

leather rot off-odour FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

bacon, clove, phenolic, smoky, spice, spicy FlavorDB 2.0

spice, clove, smoky, spicy, bacon, phenolic FlavorDB 2.0

burnt/spicy, smoky FlavorDB 2.0

smoky, clove, spicy, bacon, 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

11 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

6.9 ppb – 50.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
6.9 ppb	water/ethanol 6:4 (food: american bourbon whisky)	Literature corpus	—
50.0 ppb	water_odor	Leffingwell	—
50.0 ppb SIDA	water	Rychlik 1998 · 2 studies	—

In a food matrix

4.4 ppb – 16.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
4.4 ppb	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	—
16.0 ppb	water (food: smoked cooked loin (pork))	Literature corpus	—

Retronasal / in-mouth

0.540 ppb – 10.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.540 ppb SIDA	oil_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
10.0 ppb SIDA	water_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—

Other matrix

0.260 ppb – 88.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.260 ppb SIDA	oil_orthonasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
6.9 ppb	ethanol/water (food: rum / red wine)	Literature corpus	—
6.9 ppb	ethanol/water 40/60 (food: rum (aged))	Literature corpus	—
88.0 ppb	wine matrix (12% ethanol) (food: rum / red wine)	Literature corpus	—

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 (33.0 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 11 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
coffee	28003.5	849 ⚡	Corpus paper
madeira wine	33.0	1.00	DOI

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 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol. 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 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

coffee

measured · OAV 848.59

507 cmpds

19 cmpds

21 cmpds

22 cmpds