Earlier this week, we were having dinner at a Chinese restaurant and one of the dishes had plenty of Sichuan peppercorn as part of the seasoning. I remember the first time I was introduced to this spice, many years ago—its mouth-numbing effect was unmistakable, and amplified by drinking water after biting into it. However, the result wasn’t always replicable. Sometimes I got only the flavor but no vibrations.
This time, I decided to try eating several at once. I picked them out of the dish, one by one, onto the palm of my hand, and chewed the whole gobful. Well… it worked, but the pleasantness was largely offset by an oily sensation and an overpowering taste. “Linalool,” I realized and declared. It felt like eating a lavender ointment (which I haven’t done).
Sure enough, I looked into it the next day and my suspicions were verified.
Interestingly, oily extracts from Sichuan pepper are extremely rich in terpene compounds, with linalool being the most abundant (75% by weight).1
The article also validated my personal reaction:
Our sensory trial revealed that linalool produces neither burning nor tingling sensations but elicited a weak but unpleasant taste and a strong floral odour.1
Linalyl acetate, also a principal component of lavender essential oil, plays a large role in some types of Sichuan pepper (huajiao) as well. A different study found that linalyl acetate (15%), linalool (13%), and limonene (12%) are the major components of red huajiao, whereas linalool (29%), limonene (14%), and sabinene (13%) are the major components of green huajiao.2
It also concluded that:
The tingling sensation of huajiao is caused mainly by the alkylamide hydroxy-α-sanshool. The tingling compound decomposes easily under hydrolytic conditions or under UV light.2
A surprising number of perfumes in the Fragrantica database contain Sichuan pepper as a note, across all genres. Perhaps it goes to show that the ingredient works best as an accessory rather than a main note.
- Riera CE, Menozzi-Smarrito C, Affolter M, et al. Compounds from Sichuan and Melegueta peppers activate, covalently and non-covalently, TRPA1 and TRPV1 channels. Br J Pharmacol. 2009;157(8):1398-1409.
- Yang X. Aroma constituents and alkylamides of red and green huajiao (Zanthoxylum bungeanum and Zanthoxylum schinifolium). J Agric Food Chem. 2008;56(5):1689-1696.
Nose Prose 
What an interesting read, thank you.
Despite being a fan of Sichuan dishes & having cooked with Sichuan peppers I’ve never really got the numbing sensation. Either my supply has always been too old or I need to use more!
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I’m not sure if I’ve gotten it from the food itself without biting into a peppercorn. As I’ve just learned, it can be overdone!
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Fascinating post, Nose Prose. And as it so happened last weekend I was sampling two peppery perfumes. Saturday I tested Poivre Pomelo from Atelier Materi. It’s probably got more citrus than spice, but it’s an interesting tangy zesty scent. On Sunday I sampled Obvious Perfumes Scoville and it reminded me very much of Paprika Brasil from Hermes with a heavier dose of pepper and chili spice. That one reminded me more of food than Poivre Pomelo. Both interesting scents, though.
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I’m looking at getting a sample of Scoville as I need a replacement for A*Men A Taste of Fragrance which was a coffee/red chilli combo & wore beautifully
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Ah, I remember liking that one too. Shame that they discontinued. I wonder if you’ll find Scoville is a tad more peppery than chilli though. I thought of it as a combination of Poivre Samarcande and Paprika Brasil from Hermes.
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That’s a little disappointing. The A*Men was definitely chilli. It’s ridiculously priced on the odd occasion it gets listed on resale sites.
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What a nice coincidence! I’ve never met an Atelier Materi fragrance I didn’t like, and the scents tend to match the names. Not sure I’d want to smell of food, especially a spicy dish, as it can be enticing before eating but not so much after!
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Great read, Nose Prose. Funny enough, I decided to pull up perfumes with Sichuan pepper as a note intensity of “strong” and came up with a couple of interesting results from my own collection.
Sauvage – Dior
Ciel d’Opale – Ann Gérard
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What did you use to narrow the search by intensity? I was surprised to see Sauvage in its various formulations on the list, but don’t know the scent well enough to say I didn’t expect the note there.
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It was more about where the note may appear in the levels of the perfume. I probably mentioned before that I’ve had my collection on Parfumo.com since I join their forum in 2011. I use a feature called Profiler, which allows me to filter my collection my fragrance notes, categories, or scent types. Then those results can be further filtered by all notes, top, heart or base notes. That’s how I got to the results I mentioned in my initial reply. I find it to be a very useful tool.
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Thanks for letting me know! That sounds like a great tool.
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I’ll be honest, Nose Prose. The forum use to be a wonderful experience, but all the great people I had the chance to meet and communicate with are all gone. The only real use I’ve found is for the management of my collection, and the perfume data base.
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That’s too bad. I haven’t joined any perfume forums, though I read threads on them sometimes. I tried the Perfumist app for a while to log my SOTD but now all my perfume info lives in a simple Excel sheet…
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You know the saying, nothing good lasts forever.
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