o-cresol

spicy phenol Key food odorant

Found in 30 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C7H8O
Molecular weight: 108.14 g/mol
PubChem CID: 335 — full record on PubChem

Key food odorant (individualist)

Dunkel et al. 2014

Identified 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. Characteristic odor: phenolic, smoky.

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

Properties

Odor description: phenol
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 650 ppb 1 published value · see all 5 with sources
Volatility: high
CAS number: 95-48-7
Retention index: 1913

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

✓ Exact match

FEMA number: 3480
GRAS publication: GRAS 10
FEMA primary name: o-CRESOL

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

2-methylphenol

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.

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

—

medicinal, musty, phenol, phenolic FlavorDB 2.0

smoke FlavorDB 2.0

bitter 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

5 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

650 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
650 ppb SIDA	water	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—

In a food matrix

54.5 ppb – 1006 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
54.5 ppb	water (food: wine)	Literature corpus	—
1006 ppb	water (food: tea)	Literature corpus	—

Retronasal / in-mouth

2.5 ppb

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

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

In air

0.280 ppb

Airborne detection — not comparable to a water threshold.

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
0.280 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.

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain o-cresol. 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 o-cresol in it.

102 cmpds

106 cmpds

107 cmpds

109 cmpds