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Compound sheet

Aroma molecule · ester

2-phenylethyl ester

Smells offlowery

Found in 1 ingredient. We hold no measured concentration for it in any of them yet, so we cannot say where it is strong enough to smell.

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Formula
—
Mass
164.2 g/mol
CAS
103-45-7
PubChem
—
Threshold · water
108 ppb
Class
ester
Status
Key food odorant

01How little it takes

  • in water 250
  • in a food 250
  • in alcohol 250
  • in wine/beer 250

ppb, log scale · tick = median of published values, bar = full range, from open-access paper tables (not reviewed)

02Where it turns up

  • Drinks1

of the 1 ingredient that contain it, by food group

03What it travels with

Too few ingredients to say what it travels with.

What does 2-phenylethyl ester smell like?

The key-food-odorant survey describes it as flowery.

It is a key food odorant (intermediary): identified in the meta-analysis of 227 food samples as one of 57 intermediary odorants, which appear in 5–25% of foods. Source: Dunkel et al. 2014, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 53, 7124–7143

Which foods contain 2-phenylethyl ester?

We list 1 ingredient that contain it, but presence is not the same as smell. What matters is how much is there compared with how little it takes to notice it. That ratio is the odour activity value (OAV): above 1, you can smell it.

Found in

Measured foods first, then real food profiles, then thin or composite records (marked). The figure beside each is how many compounds that ingredient has in total, not the amount of 2-phenylethyl ester in it. ✓n = sources that recorded the link.

How strong is 2-phenylethyl ester?

Orthonasal, in clean water: 108 ppb, from 1 published value.

Published thresholds

6 measured values from the literature, grouped by what was measured: a threshold smelled in clean water, tasted, or measured in a real food are different quantities and are not pooled.

Orthonasal, in clean water · 108 ppb ppbThe reference measurement — smelled in water. OAV is computed against this.
ThresholdMatrixSourcePaper
108 ppb water/ethanol 6:4 (food: american bourbon whisky) Literature corpus 33995294, 34666813, 35497223 +7
Retronasal / in-mouth · 20.0 ppb–212 ppb ppbTasted rather than smelled — a different sense, not comparable.
ThresholdMatrixSourcePaper
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 ppbMeasured in a non-aqueous medium (oil, starch, cellulose).
ThresholdMatrixSourcePaper
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, so every number here traces to a citable source.

Thresholds in published tables

MediumMedianRangeValuesPapersPapers agree?
air 249.8 µg/L air 0.25–909 87 no (3.4 decades)
ethanol solution 250 ppb 0.25–1.8e+03 2121 yes
food matrix 250 ppb 12–2.5e+05 6660 yes
model wine or beer 250 ppb 73–1.8e+03 66 yes
unstated 250 ppb 0.65–2.5e+04 139131 yes
water 249.6 ppb 2.16–6.5e+03 1817 yes

Numbers printed in open-access papers, grouped by the medium the table states. Median and full range; “agree” means two or more papers whose middle 80% of values sit within 100×. Not reviewed.

Is 2-phenylethyl ester safe to eat?

Not in FEMA GRAS publications 1–33. Of 3,367 listed flavoring substances, none match this compound or its other names. It may still be food-safe under other regulatory routes (FDA 21 CFR 172, EFSA, JECFA); check femaflavor.org for the authoritative current list.

2-phenylethyl ester questions

What does 2-phenylethyl ester smell like?

Sources describe 2-phenylethyl ester as flowery. It is one of the key food odorants identified by Dunkel et al. (2014).

Which foods contain 2-phenylethyl ester?

We list 1 ingredient that contain 2-phenylethyl ester.

How strong is 2-phenylethyl ester?

The median of 1 published odour thresholds in water is 108 ppb.

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

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Cite this analysis
Plain text
Compound Kitchen (2026). 2-phenylethyl ester compound data sheet. https://compkitchen.com/compound/2-phenylethyl%20ester. Accessed 2026-11-03.
BibTeX
@misc{compkitchen_compound_2_phenylethyl_ester_compound_data_sheet_2026,
  title  = {2-phenylethyl ester compound data sheet},
  author = {{Compound Kitchen}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://compkitchen.com/compound/2-phenylethyl%20ester},
  note   = {Accessed: 2026-11-03}
}

Methodology DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19719459 · CC BY 4.0 · Citations are a request, not a requirement.