beta-pinene
herbal terpene Key food odorantFound in 146 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.
Look up another compound — search by name, CAS number, PubChem CID, or FEMA #.
- Formula
- C10H16
- Molecular weight
- 136.23 g/mol
- PubChem CID
- 14896 — full record on PubChem
Key food odorant (individualist)
Dunkel et al. 2014Identified 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.
Properties
- Odor description
- pine, resin, turpentine
- Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water
- 140 ppb 1 published value · see all 11 with sources
- Volatility
- high
- CAS number
- 127-91-3
- Retention index
- 980
FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use
- 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.
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.
Same molecule, unified here — previously counted and displayed as separate compounds.
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.
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
140 ppbThe reference measurement — smelled in water. OAV is computed against this.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 140 ppb | water_odor | Leffingwell | — |
In a food matrix
0.580 ppb – 89.0 ppbMeasured in a real food, where the matrix shifts detection — not a clean-water value.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.580 ppb | water (food: grape) | Literature corpus | 34718544, 37284321, 40673157 +1 |
| 1.2 ppb | water (food: lamb) | Literature corpus | 34718544, 37284321, 40673157 +1 |
| 3.5 ppb | water (food: lemon) | Literature corpus | 34718544, 37284321, 40673157 +1 |
| 4.7 ppb | water (food: tea) | Literature corpus | 34718544, 37284321, 40673157 +1 |
| 5.7 ppb | water (food: unknown) | Literature corpus | 34718544, 40673157 |
| 7.2 ppb | water (food: tomato) | Literature corpus | 34718544, 37284321, 40673157 +1 |
| 8.8 ppb | water (food: rum) | Literature corpus | 37284321, 40940369 |
| 30.0 ppb | water (food: rice) | Literature corpus | 34718544, 37284321, 40673157 +1 |
| 89.0 ppb | water (food: chocolate) | Literature corpus | 34718544, 37284321, 40673157 +1 |
In air
33.0 ppbAirborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 33.0 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 (6.436999999999999 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 11 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.
| Food | Concentration (ppb) | OAV | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| rum | 93.1 | 14.5 ⚡ | Corpus paper |
| grape | 19.2 | 2.99 | Corpus paper |
| tea | 10.6 | 1.65 | Corpus paper |
| tomato | 5.0 | 0.78 | Corpus paper |
| mango | 2.3 | 0.36 | DOI |
| lamb | 1.6 | 0.25 | Corpus paper |
| lemon | 1.0 | 0.16 | — |
| chocolate | 0.3 | 0.05 | — |
| rice | 0.0 | 0.00 | — |
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 shareEvery ingredient known to contain beta-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 beta-pinene in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.
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