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geosmin

earthy oxygenated compound

Found in 14 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis structure of geosmin
2D Lewis Structure
Formula
C12H22O
Molecular weight
182.30 g/mol
PubChem CID
29746 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor description
earthy, musty, beet
Odor threshold
0.02 ppb
Varies by food: 0.02 – 1.65 ppb across the ingredients we hold it in. The figure shown is the lowest of those, not a measurement for any single food.
Volatility
medium
CAS number
19700-21-1
Retention index
1429
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.

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.

earthy, musty, beet shown above Flavornet Cas, Flavornet Name, Flavordb Odor Column 3 sources agree
—
earthy-musty smell FlavorDB 2.0
4
earthy FlavorDB 2.0
3
earthy humus dirty weedy wet turnup FlavorDB 2.0
1
earthy-muddy, earthy-musty FlavorDB 2.0
1
moldy-musty FlavorDB 2.0
1

Bars are the share of ingredient records carrying each description. High agreement means the sources replicate each other — not necessarily that they are right.

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain geosmin. 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 geosmin in it.

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