What Litsea Cubeba Smells Like: Lemon Drops, Not Peel
Open a bottle of litsea cubeba and the first thing you notice is lemon, but not the lemon of a freshly cut peel. It is closer to a lemon drop: sweet, bright and a little round, which is how we describe it as intense, sweet and lemon-bright with a soft fruity, floral roundness. It is also lemon without a citrus tree, since the oil comes from the fruit of a laurel-family tree.
Litsea Cubeba Essential Oil
Our own Litsea Cubeba Essential Oil, in sizes from 0.5 oz to bulk.
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Shop Now →Two molecules do most of the work
The lemon comes from citral, a pair of aldehydes called geranial and neral. Zhao and colleagues (2023) analysed fruit from three litsea cubeba types, found 27 aroma compounds, and scored each for how much it contributes to the smell. Geranial and neral came out on top by a wide margin, each at least five times the next compound on the list. Older handbook entries collected by PubChem describe geranial as a strong lemon odour and neral as lemon that is not as intense but sweeter. So there is sharp and sweet in the same bottle, and the balance between them can differ from oil to oil. The same study links aroma differences partly to the tree’s own genetics, so not all of the variation comes from the still.
Why it is not simply lemon oil
Lemon peel oil is built differently. A 2020 review reports cold-pressed lemon oil at about 70% limonene, a terpene, with only around 4% citral. Litsea cubeba turns that around. Published analyses of fruit oils put citral at somewhere around two-thirds of the oil in one set of commercial batches and 78.7% to 87.4% in oils from eight Chinese regions, with limonene far lower in the second set. So litsea gives you the sweet, candy-like citrus aldehyde note with less of the peel’s body. For blending that is a feature: it reads as lemon-bright, and it sits at the top of a blend, where we recommend it. For a closer comparison of the two oils, see our litsea versus lemon article.
Trying a bottle
A simple approach works well. Put a drop on a paper strip rather than sniffing from the bottle, hold it at arm’s length in a ventilated room, and note your first impression in your own words. Is it sharp and clean, or rounder and sweeter? Does anything seem off? Come back to the same strip in a few minutes to see how it settles, and give your nose a break between oils, because it tires quickly. The EFSA evaluation classes the oil as a skin and eye irritant and, by assumption, a respiratory sensitiser, so smell from a strip and do not breathe it from the bottle repeatedly.
The Certificate of Analysis we publish lists the smell of the one batch it covers as “Complies” against a standard of “Sweet Fruity”, which is a fair summary of that first impression, though it is a pass-or-fail check and not a measure of strength.
Pairing a scent like this
Because the note is so clear, litsea cubeba pairs naturally with partners that give it some depth. We suggest ginger, rosemary, geranium, vetiver, bergamot, ylang ylang or lavender, available from your usual supplier. Our blending article goes through how to test a match, and the minor-notes article looks at the supporting notes around the citral. If you want the chemistry in more detail, see our citral article.
Whether it is lemon drops, bright citrus or something in between to you, it is worth giving it a good sniff on a strip.
Litsea Cubeba Essential Oil
Litsea Cubeba Essential Oil from our own shop, in sizes from 0.5 oz to bulk.
From $12.99
Shop Now →Sources & Further Reading
- Zhao Y et al., 2023. Comparative investigation of key aroma terpenoids of Litsea cubeba essential oil by sensory, chromatographic, spectral and molecular studies. LWT.
- PubChem. Citral (compound 638011).
- Klimek-Szczykutowicz M et al., 2020. Citrus limon (Lemon) Phenomenon - A Review of the Chemistry, Pharmacological Properties, Applications in the Modern Pharmaceutical, Food, and Cosmetics Industries, and Biotechnological Studies. Plants.
- Si L et al., 2012. Chemical composition of essential oils of Litsea cubeba harvested from its distribution areas in China. Molecules.
- EFSA FEEDAP Panel, 2021. Safety and efficacy of a feed additive consisting of an essential oil from the fruits of Litsea cubeba (Lour.) Pers. (litsea berry oil) for use in all animal species (FEFANA asbl). EFSA Journal.