Джекфрут

Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam., Moraceae) is the world's largest tree-borne fruit — single specimens routinely weigh 30 to 50 kg. Native to the Western Ghats of India and now cultivated across Southeast Asia, the Pacific and tropical America, the species belongs to the mulberry/fig family and shares the multiple-fruit botanical structure of its cousins.

Aromatic chemistry

The ripe-jackfruit headspace is ester-dominated [A]: ethyl 2-methylbutanoate (CAS 7452-79-1) leads, with isoamyl acetate and isoamyl isovalerate contributing the banana-like and ripe-juicy character, allyl heptanoate for the pineapple angle. Beneath this fruity ester palette runs a faint sulphurous undertone from methional (CAS 3268-49-3) and trace dimethyl sulphide — the same family of compounds that gives durian its more notorious character, here at much lower concentration. The accord reads sweet, ripe, slightly fermented, tropical.

In perfumery

Jackfruit has no commercial perfumery extract — water-soluble esters and trace thiols do not survive industrial extraction. The fragrance note is always a reconstruction, built from the headspace-identified compounds at perfumery dilution. Jackfruit accords pair naturally with banana, pineapple, mango, lychee and other tropical-fruit reconstructions, with coconut lactones for tropical-creamy body, and with white florals (tiare, frangipani) for full tropical compositions.

Sources & Notes

[A] PubChem CID 24020 — ethyl 2-methylbutanoate, CAS 7452-79-1. Dominant ripe-fruity ester of jackfruit. See: Lin & Wang (2018), 'Volatile compounds of ripe Artocarpus heterophyllus,' Food Chem. pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/24020.