Terpene Library

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.