phenethyl acetate

fruity ester Key food odorant

Found in 466 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C10H12O2
Molecular weight: 164.20 g/mol
PubChem CID: 7654 — full record on PubChem

Key food odorant (intermediary)

Dunkel et al. 2014

Identified in the meta-analysis of 227 food samples as one of 57 intermediary odorants — appears in 5–25% of foods. Characteristic odor: flowery.

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

Properties

Odor description: rose, honey, floral, sweet
Odor threshold — orthonasal, in clean water: 108 ppb 1 published value · see all 14 with sources
Volatility: medium
CAS number: 103-45-7
Retention index: 1736

Regulatory · United States

FEMA GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe for flavoring use

✓ Exact match

FEMA number: 2857
GRAS publication: GRAS 3
FEMA primary name: PHENETHYL ACETATE

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-phenyl ethyl acetate 2-phenylethyl acetate 2-phenylethylacetate

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.

rose, honey, tobacco Flavornet Cas

—

floral rose sweet honey fruity tropical FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

pine FlavorDB 2.0, Flavordb Odor Column 2 sources agree

floral, fruity, honey, rose, sweet, tobacco, tropical FlavorDB 2.0

442

Floral, sweet: honey, rosy, green - nectar mouth feel FlavorDB 2.0

banana, chemical, fermented 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

14 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

108 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
108 ppb	water/ethanol 6:4 (food: american bourbon whisky)	Literature corpus	33995294, 34666813, 35497223 +7

In a food matrix

1.4 ppb – 310 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
1.4 ppb	water (food: peach)	Literature corpus	37476402
1.9 ppb	water (food: unknown)	Literature corpus	33995294, 34666813, 35497223 +1
2.0 ppb	water (food: wine)	Literature corpus	36496598
2.3 ppb	water (food: tea)	Literature corpus	37188725
5.0 ppb	water (food: apple)	Literature corpus	33995294, 34666813, 35497223 +7
20.1 ppb	water (food: beer)	Literature corpus	33995294, 34666813, 35497223 +7
310 ppb	water (food: lime)	Literature corpus	41048468
424 ppb	water (food: rice)	Literature corpus	38846797, 40467248
Flagged: 116× 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

20.0 ppb – 212 ppb

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

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
20.0 ppb SIDA	water_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
212 ppb SIDA	oil_retronasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—

Other matrix

137 ppb – 233 ppb

Measured in a non-aqueous medium (oil, starch, cellulose).

Threshold	Matrix	Source	Paper
137 ppb SIDA	oil_orthonasal	Rychlik 1998 · 1 studies	—
233 ppb	oil (sunflower oil) (food: cocoa beans)	Literature corpus	33995294, 34666813, 35497223 +7
233 ppb	oil (sunflower oil) (food: cocoa powder)	Literature corpus	33995294, 34666813, 35497223 +7

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 (3.66 ppb, the engine's canonical value — see the 14 published values). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
grape	10000.0	2732 ⚡	PMID 36151514
lime	1822.0	498 ⚡	Corpus paper
peach	532.3	145 ⚡	Corpus paper
rice	286.0	78.1 ⚡	Corpus paper
red wine	50.0	13.7 ⚡	—
tea	41.0	11.2 ⚡	Corpus paper
wine	1.0	0.27	Corpus paper
apple	1.0	0.27	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 share

Every ingredient known to contain phenethyl acetate. 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 phenethyl acetate in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

grape

measured · OAV 2732.24

578 cmpds

lime

measured · OAV 497.81

301 cmpds

peach

measured · OAV 145.44

375 cmpds

rice

measured · OAV 78.14

432 cmpds