geraniol
floral terpenoid Key food odorantFound in 467 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.
Look up another compound — search by name, CAS number, PubChem CID, or FEMA #.
- Formula
- C10H18O
- Molecular weight
- 154.25 g/mol
- PubChem CID
- 637566 — 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
- rose, geranium
- Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water
- 40.0 ppb – 57.5 ppb median 48.8 ppb · 2 published values · see all 17 with sources
- Volatility
- medium
- CAS number
- 106-24-1
- Retention index
- 1255
FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use
- FEMA number
- 2507
- GRAS publication
- GRAS 3
- FEMA primary name
- GERANIOL-trans-3,7-Dimethyl-2,6-octadien-1-ol
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.
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
17 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
40.0 ppb – 57.5 ppbThe reference measurement — smelled in water. OAV is computed against this.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 40.0 ppb SIDA | water | Rychlik 1998 · 3 studies | — |
| 57.5 ppb | water_odor | Leffingwell | — |
In a food matrix
1.1 ppb – 40.0 ppbMeasured in a real food, where the matrix shifts detection — not a clean-water value.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.1 ppb SIDA | water (food: green tea infusion (jingshan cha)) | Literature corpus | 29376363, 32251584, 11308345 +60 |
| 1.1 ppb SIDA | water (food: reference standard (water)) | Literature corpus | 29376363, 32251584, 11308345 +60 |
| 1.1 ppb SIDA | water (food: longjing green tea infusion) | Literature corpus | 29376363, 32251584, 11308345 +60 |
| 1.3 ppb | water (food: lemon) | Literature corpus | 20862741, 30009387, 31502246 |
| 4.0 ppb SIDA | water (food: ginger) | Literature corpus | 29376363, 11308345, 17898513 +60 |
| 6.0 ppb SIDA | water (food: soy sauce) | Literature corpus | 29376363, 17898513 |
| 7.0 ppb SIDA | water (food: fish) | Literature corpus | 29376363, 24594176, 36144849 +1 |
| 13.0 ppb SIDA | water (food: wine) | Literature corpus | 32251584, 11308345, 22156419 +3 |
| 13.2 ppb SIDA | water (food: tea) | Literature corpus | 32251584, 28480362, 32968179 +2 |
| 40.0 ppb SIDA | water (food: unknown) | Literature corpus | 29376363, 19753606, 22978238 +38 |
| 902 ppb | water (food: beer) | Literature corpus | 38698043 |
| Flagged: 129× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden. | |||
| 1235 ppb | water (food: rum) | Literature corpus | 35523852, 37991061, 38974992 |
| Flagged: 176× from the median of this group. Excluded from the range above pending re-check against the source publication — shown rather than hidden. | |||
| 1257 ppb | water (food: rice) | Literature corpus | 38346996 |
| Flagged: 180× 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
7.5 ppbTasted rather than smelled — a different sense, not comparable.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7.5 ppb SIDA | water_retronasal | Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies | — |
In air
85.1 ppbAirborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 85.1 ppb | air (C2_cometto_muniz_abraham) | Cometto-Muñiz (PMC) | — |
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 (10.25 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 17 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.
| Food | Concentration (ppb) | OAV | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| wine | 161550.0 | 15761 ⚡ | PMID 30704594 |
| apple | 100100.0 | 9766 ⚡ | Corpus paper |
| grape | 56190.0 | 5482 ⚡ | PMID 23110365 |
| beer | 5002.5 | 488 ⚡ | PMID 27773607 |
| basil | 1350.0 | 132 ⚡ | PMID 25471523 |
| rum | 1228.0 | 120 ⚡ | Corpus paper |
| muscaris grapes | 1160.0 | 113 ⚡ | Corpus paper |
| ginger | 1054.5 | 103 ⚡ | Corpus paper |
| black tea | 903.6 | 88.2 ⚡ | PMID 40386219 |
| tea | 632.4 | 61.7 ⚡ | Corpus paper |
| madeira wine | 25.0 | 2.44 | DOI |
| rice | 17.9 | 1.74 | Corpus paper |
| potato | 10.0 | 0.98 | PMC11719381 |
| fish | 6.0 | 0.59 | Corpus paper |
| pineapple | 1.0 | 0.10 | PMID 30569201 |
| lemon | 1.1 | 0.10 | Corpus paper |
| soybean sauce | 0.2 | 0.02 | — |
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 geraniol. 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 geraniol in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.
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