Terpene Library

Bisabolol is chamomile — the tea, and the smell of it steeping. It comes from only two notable sources, chamomile and the Brazilian candeia tree, which makes it the most narrowly sourced terpene we list. In cannabis it's soft, sweet and faintly floral, and easy to miss under louder company.

Crack black peppercorns and lean over the grinder — that hot, dry bite in your nose is caryophyllene. It's in cloves, cinnamon, oregano and basil: the spice-rack terpene. In cannabis it's why some strains smell less like fruit and more like something cooking.

Geraniol is rose. It's the molecule behind rose oil and geranium, it's what citronella candles are built on, and it's the sweet note in some pipe tobaccos. In cannabis it's rare and immediately recognisable: a jar that smells faintly of a flower shop.

Linalool is lavender. Not like lavender — it's the same molecule, which is why a linalool-heavy strain can smell like a drawer sachet or a bar of expensive soap. Mint, coriander and cinnamon carry it too, but it's the lavender people recognise.

You already know what myrcene smells like. It's the heavy, faintly sweet earthiness of a ripe mango, the back half of a hop flower, the smell of a bay leaf when you crush it between your fingers. In cannabis it's usually the most abundant terpene in the jar — in plenty of strains it's more than half the total terpene load. A lot of what people call "that weed smell" is really just myrcene.

Nerolidol is bark and blossom at the same time. It's in neroli — orange blossom — as well as jasmine, ginger and lemongrass, and it smells like fresh-cut wood with something floral behind it. In cannabis it usually works as a background note, giving depth rather than character.

Terpineol is lilac and lime blossom — sweet, floral, faintly soapy in the way good soap is soapy. It's also in pine and eucalyptus, which is strange company for a flower note, and it's part of why some pine-forward strains have an unexpected sweetness underneath.

Camphene smells like a damp forest floor: fir needles, wet wood, a trace of camphor underneath. It gets confused with myrcene constantly, and honestly the two are easy to mix up in a jar — camphene is the colder, sharper of the pair.

If you've smelled a fresh hop flower, you've smelled humulene. It's named after *Humulus lupulus*, the hop vine, and it's a good part of why cannabis and beer smell like cousins. Sage and ginseng carry it as well. In a jar it's dry, woody and a little bitter.

Eucalyptol is the cold you feel at the back of your nose from a eucalyptus leaf or a strong chest rub. Tea tree, bay, sage and cardamom carry it too. In cannabis it's uncommon and unmistakable — a cooling note that reads almost like menthol.

You've met limonene every time you've torn the peel off an orange. That bright oil that sprays into the air is mostly this, and it's the second most common terpene in nature — lemon, lime, grapefruit, juniper all carry it. In cannabis it's the one that makes a jar smell scrubbed clean rather than earthy.

Ocimene is the sweet, almost tropical note in mint, basil and parsley — and in orchids, which is the tell. It's a smell plants make to be attractive. In cannabis it reads sweet and green at once, sitting on top of a profile rather than underneath it.

Walk into a pine forest and the first thing that hits you is pinene. It's the most common terpene in the natural world — not just conifers but rosemary, basil, dill, parsley. In a jar it reads sharp and green, the smell of something just cut.

Terpinolene is the hard one to pin down, because it doesn't smell like a single thing. There's apple in it, and lilac, and something sharper underneath closer to nutmeg or cumin. It's the terpene that makes a strain smell complicated rather than simply fruity or piney.

Valencene is named after the Valencia orange, and that is exactly what it smells like — sweet orange, not the sharp lemon of limonene. Tangerines and grapefruit carry it too. In a jar it's the difference between citrus that smells like fruit and citrus that smells like cleaning product.