methyl salicylate
minty esterFound in 94 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.
Look up another compound — search by name, CAS number, PubChem CID, or FEMA #.
- Formula
- C8H8O3
- Molecular weight
- 152.15 g/mol
- PubChem CID
- 4133 — full record on PubChem
Properties
- Odor description
- peppermint
- Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water
- 40.0 ppb 1 published value · see all 11 with sources
- Volatility
- medium
- CAS number
- 119-36-8
- Retention index
- 1207
FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use
- FEMA number
- 2745
- GRAS publication
- GRAS 3
- FEMA primary name
- METHYL SALICYLATE
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
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
40.0 ppbThe reference measurement — smelled in water. OAV is computed against this.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 40.0 ppb | water_odor | Leffingwell | — |
In a food matrix
0.960 ppb – 1814 ppbMeasured in a real food, where the matrix shifts detection — not a clean-water value.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.960 ppb | water (food: tea) | Literature corpus | 32968179, 39877541 |
| 1.5 ppb | water (food: tomato) | Literature corpus | 28050733 |
| 1.9 ppb | water (food: wine) | Literature corpus | 36496598 |
| 7.0 ppb | water (food: fish) | Literature corpus | 17898464, 26299134, 28050733 +15 |
| 13.0 ppb | water (food: apple) | Literature corpus | 34196858 |
| 58.0 ppb | water (food: lime) | Literature corpus | 41048468 |
| 135 ppb | water (food: chocolate) | Literature corpus | 17898464 |
| 171 ppb | water (food: unknown) | Literature corpus | 26299134, 29238032, 31407199 +6 |
| 1194 ppb | water (food: beef) | Literature corpus | 37701748 |
| 1814 ppb | water (food: rice) | Literature corpus | 36307468 |
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 (40.0 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 11 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.
| Food | Concentration (ppb) | OAV | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| verdicchio wine | 10000.0 | 250 ⚡ | Corpus paper |
| tobacco | 5000.0 | 125 ⚡ | PMID 26388954 |
| lime | 1735.0 | 43.4 ⚡ | Corpus paper |
| turkey | 1500.7 | 37.5 ⚡ | PMID 15713037 |
| black tea | 903.6 | 22.6 ⚡ | PMID 40386219 |
| orange | 290.0 | 7.25 | DOI |
| beef | 120.0 | 3.00 | Corpus paper |
| tea | 30.9 | 0.77 | Corpus paper |
| apple | 20.0 | 0.50 | Corpus paper |
| mustard | 15.0 | 0.38 | PMID 32468369 |
| fish | 6.0 | 0.15 | Corpus paper |
| wine | 2.4 | 0.06 | Corpus paper |
| tomato | 1.2 | 0.03 | — |
| rice | 0.6 | 0.02 | PMID 41384072 |
| chocolate | 0.9 | 0.02 | Corpus paper |
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 methyl salicylate. 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 methyl salicylate in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.
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