SMELLBOOK REFERENCE · SB-0130
Sage
Permanent ID: smellbook: · updated 2026-10-14, revision 4
Character EDITORIAL
Sage smells dry, green and earthy, with a soft, slightly cooling herbal edge and a faintly dusty texture.
Words: herbal, dry, green, earthy. Families: Temperature and texture, Fresh and clean, Wood, earth and stone.
States: dry (VERIFIED). A state says how an entry is met, such as wet, aged or roasted. It does not create a new smell, and it adds no scientific fact by itself: states marked EDITORIAL come from the entry's own records, and only those marked VERIFIED are reported by a VERIFIED claim.
Met in: Garden, Kitchen.
Evidence
Scientific evidence
- Thujone, camphor and cineole in sage oil (CLM-SAGE-001). Zoran S. Ilić, Žarko Kevrešan, Ljubomir Šunić, Ljiljana Stanojević, Lidija Milenković, Jelena Stanojević, Aleksandra Milenković & Dragan Cvetković, Chemical Profiling and Antioxidant Activity of Wild and Cultivated Sage (Salvia officinalis L.) Essential Oil, Horticulturae, 2023.
- Key aroma compounds of fresh sage leaves and what drying removes (CLM-SAGE-002). Michaela Jonas & Peter Schieberle, Characterization of the Key Aroma Compounds in Fresh Leaves of Garden Sage (Salvia officinalis L.) by Means of the Sensomics Approach: Influence of Drying and Storage and Comparison with Commercial Dried Sage, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 2021.
Molecules named in these claims: 1,8-cineole, camphor, cis-thujone, (Z)-3-hexenal, borneol, eugenol. A molecule listed here is named in a VERIFIED claim about this smell. It is not presented as the cause of the smell; each claim says what its source supports.
Cite
SmellBook. (2026). Sage (revision 4, 2026-10-14). SmellBook Public Atlas. smellbook:smell:sage. https://smellbook.com/smells/sage
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