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How does honey build its floral complexity?

Honey's aroma is not simply sweetness — it's a negotiation between a high-dominance terpene and a pair of acids that, at the wrong concentrations, would register as a barnyard or worse.

Linalool
The dominant floral-citrus terpene driving honey's lavender register
OAV in honey
Aroma: flower, lavender, citrus · terpene
Hexanoic acid
A sweaty, goat-cheese acid held just below the threshold of offense
OAV in honey
Aroma: sweaty, cheesy, goat · acid
Benzoic acid
A urine-note acid present below perceptual detection — structurally inert at this dose
OAV in honey
Aroma: urine · acid

Linalool does the heavy lifting, but honey's character is partly defined by what its acids don't do — hexanoic acid adds barnyard warmth without tipping into rancid, and benzoic acid stays silent beneath the nose's detection floor.

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.

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