alpha-pinene

woody terpene Key food odorant

Found in 167 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C10H16
Molecular weight: 136.23 g/mol
PubChem CID: 6654 — 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: pine, resinous.

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

Properties

Odor description: pine, turpentine
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 6.0 ppb 1 published value · see all 18 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 80-56-8
Retention index: 939

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

✓ Exact match

FEMA number: 2902
GRAS publication: GRAS 3
FEMA primary name: a-PINENE

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

a-pinene α-pinene

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.

pine, turpentine shown above Flavornet Cas, Flavornet Name, Flavordb Odor Column 3 sources agree

—

pine FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

camphor, earthy, fresh, harsh, minty, pine, sweet, terpene, turpentine, woody FlavorDB 2.0

123

at 5.00 - 100.00 ppm. FlavorDB 2.0

green, fresh FlavorDB 2.0

green flavor 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

18 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

6.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
6.0 ppb	water_odor	Leffingwell	—

In a food matrix

0.840 ppb – 84.0 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.840 ppb	water (food: grape)	Literature corpus	40673157, 40940369
2.5 ppb	water (food: goat milk)	Literature corpus	40673157, 40940369
2.8 ppb	water (food: lemon)	Literature corpus	40673157, 40940369
3.7 ppb	water (food: lamb)	Literature corpus	40673157, 40940369
4.6 ppb	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	40673157, 40940369
5.0 ppb	water (food: orange juice (reconstituted from concentrate))	Literature corpus	40673157, 40940369
5.0 ppb	water (food: hand-squeezed grapefruit juice)	Literature corpus	40673157, 40940369
9.0 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	40673157
10.1 ppb	water (food: tea)	Literature corpus	40673157, 40940369
10.6 ppb	water (food: rum)	Literature corpus	40940369
41.0 ppb	water (food: reference standard (water))	Literature corpus	40673157, 40940369
84.0 ppb	water (food: chocolate)	Literature corpus	40673157, 40940369
937 ppb	water (food: ginger)	Literature corpus	40673157, 40940369
Flagged: 134× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden.
1020 ppb	water (food: olive oil)	Literature corpus	40673157, 40940369
Flagged: 146× 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

120 ppb

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

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

In air

6.0 ppb – 18.0 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
6.0 ppb	air (food: reference standard (air))	Literature corpus	40673157, 40940369
18.0 ppb	air	Nagata 2003	—

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 (6.0 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 18 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
haloragis cordata rhizomes	143000.0	23833 ⚡	Corpus paper
olive oil	1011.0	168 ⚡	Corpus paper
rum	93.1	15.5 ⚡	Corpus paper
tea	24.0	4.00	Corpus paper
grape	17.7	2.95	Corpus paper
ginger	11.9	1.98	Corpus paper
lamb	2.8	0.47	Corpus paper
mango	1.9	0.32	DOI
lemon	1.0	0.17	Corpus paper
chocolate	0.2	0.03	—

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 alpha-pinene. 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 alpha-pinene in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

254 cmpds

617 cmpds

578 cmpds

438 cmpds