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What gives a fresh apple its grassy edge?

Bite into an apple and the bright, clean top note isn't just sweetness — it's a cluster of green, fatty, and solvent-adjacent compounds that apple shares, in strikingly different proportions, with olive oil.

2-hexenal
2-hexenal — the fat/rancid aldehyde that dominates olive oil but barely registers in apple
OAV in apple
Aroma: fat, rancid · Also 1,176 OAV in olive · aldehyde
Hexanol
hexanol — the green-apple alcohol that anchors the fresh, cut-grass character
OAV in apple
Aroma: green apple · Also 80 OAV in olive · alcohol
Ethyl acetate
ethyl acetate — the pineapple-fruity ester that tips apple's profile toward solvent-sweet
OAV in apple
Aroma: pineapple, fruity, solvent · Also 4 OAV in olive · ester

Apple and olive oil draw from the same short-chain aldehyde and alcohol toolkit; what separates them is dosage. In apple, 2-hexenal sits below its detection threshold while hexanol and ethyl acetate take the lead, steering perception toward fruit rather than fat.

Unlock the OAV numbers

See exactly how far over the detection threshold each compound is — the part of the chemistry that explains why this pairing works. Plus the full ranked list for any ingredient, compound index, and Compare tool.

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See every ingredient that contains 2-hexenal · Compare apple vs olive

OAV (Odor Activity Value) = concentration ÷ detection threshold. Numbers above 1 mean the compound contributes detectably to aroma.

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