Рамбутан

Rambutan (Nephelium lappaceum) is a tropical fruit in the Sapindaceae family — the soapberry family — and a close relative of lychee, longan and pulasan. Native to the Malay Archipelago and now cultivated across Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines), it carries the same translucent juicy flesh-around-a-seed structure as its cousins, with a slightly sweeter, more grape-like flavour and a famously spiky-hairy skin. The name comes from the Malay rambut — hair.

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In perfumery

Rambutan has no commercial perfumery extract. The fruit's volatile profile is dominated by water and short-chain esters that do not survive extraction at scale, and unlike lychee — which has been profiled by GC-MS and reconstructed extensively — rambutan has remained largely outside the major suppliers' catalogues. Any 'rambutan' note in fragrance is a reconstructed accord, built molecule by molecule from damascenone (CAS 23696-85-7) [A], β-ionone, γ-decalactone and a small ester palette — close in shape to a lychee reconstruction but pushed slightly toward grape and rose.

Sources & Notes

[A] PubChem CID 5366074 — β-damascenone, CAS 23696-85-7, C₁₃H₁₈O. The plum-rose ketone central to most fruity-floral reconstructions in the lychee-grape register. pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/5366074.