Aroma molecule · lactone
4-hexanolide
Smells ofcoumarin, sweet
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
- 114.1441 g/mol
- CAS
- 695-06-7
- PubChem
- —
- FEMA
- not listed
- Threshold · water
- 1600 ppb
- Class
- lactone
- Status
- Aroma-active
01How little it takes
- in waterpapers disagree 260
- in a foodpapers disagree 260
- in alcohol 185,750
- in oilpapers disagree 8,000
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 4-hexanolide smell like?
Sources describe it as coumarin, sweet.
How this molecule is described
- coumarin, sweet shown above Flavornet Cas, Flavornet Name, Flavordb Odor Column 3 sources agree
- sweet FlavorDB 2.0
Ordered by how many independent descriptor streams give each wording, then by how often it appears. The bar is replication (one source copied onto many ingredients scores high), not corroboration.
Which foods contain 4-hexanolide?
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 4-hexanolide in it. ✓n = sources that recorded the link.
How strong is 4-hexanolide?
Orthonasal, in clean water: 1600 ppb, from 1 published value. Thresholds printed in paper tables for oil are about 31× the ones for water.
Published thresholds
1 measured value 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.
| Threshold | Matrix | Source | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1600 ppb | water_odor | Leffingwell | — |
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
| Medium | Median | Range | Values | Papers | Papers agree? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ethanol solution | 1.858e+05 ppb | 1.25e+04–3.59e+05 | 2 | 2 | yes |
| food matrix | 260 ppb | 50–3.59e+05 | 6 | 5 | no (2.4 decades) |
| oil | 8000 ppb | 8e+03–8e+03 | 1 | 1 | one paper |
| unstated | 1600 ppb | 0.26–5e+06 | 27 | 23 | no (3.9 decades) |
| water | 260 ppb | 1.6–1.6e+03 | 12 | 11 | no (2.3 decades) |
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.
- Retention index
- 1737
Is 4-hexanolide 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.
4-hexanolide questions
What does 4-hexanolide smell like?
Sources describe 4-hexanolide as coumarin and sweet.
Which foods contain 4-hexanolide?
We list 1 ingredient that contain 4-hexanolide.
How strong is 4-hexanolide?
The median of 1 published odour thresholds in water is 1600 ppb. Published values in oil are about 31 times higher than in water.
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Cite this analysis
Compound Kitchen (2026). 4-hexanolide compound data sheet. https://compkitchen.com/compound/4-hexanolide. Accessed 2026-11-03.
@misc{compkitchen_compound_4_hexanolide_compound_data_sheet_2026,
title = {4-hexanolide compound data sheet},
author = {{Compound Kitchen}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://compkitchen.com/compound/4-hexanolide},
note = {Accessed: 2026-11-03}
}
Methodology DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19719459 · CC BY 4.0 · Citations are a request, not a requirement.