gentisic acid

sour acid

Found in 375 ingredients across the CompKitchen flavor graph.

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

2D Lewis Structure

Formula: C7H6O4
Molecular weight: 154.12 g/mol
PubChem CID: 3469 — full record on PubChem

Properties

Odor threshold: 90000.0 ppb
Volatility: medium
CAS number: 490-79-9

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

Where you'd actually smell it

Odor Activity Value = measured concentration ÷ odor threshold (90000.0 ppb). OAV ≥ 1 = perceptible.

Food	Concentration (ppb)	OAV	Source
tea	70.0	0.00	—

Concentrations from PubMed Central Open Access papers (free literature corpus, MIT-style licensed). Copper = OAV ≥ 10 (strongly perceptible). Green = OAV ≥ 1 (perceptible).

Thresholds in published tables

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

Medium	Median	Range	Values	Papers	Papers agree?
unstated	2530 ppb	2.53e+03–2.53e+03	1	1	one paper

Found in

Measured impact first, then profile share

Every ingredient known to contain gentisic acid. 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 gentisic acid in it. Full concentrations are in the OAV table above.

103 cmpds

103 cmpds

104 cmpds

104 cmpds