The small tree, Litsea Cubeba, grows in Eastern Asia, mainly in Chine, former Indochina and is cultivated to a minor extent in Formosa and Japan. Oil of Litsea Cubeba is a pale yellow, mobile oil of intensely lemon like, fresh and sweet odor, with a soft and sweet fruity, uniform dryout. There are few or no fatty grassy methyl heptenone notes detectable. This is where the oil of litsea cubeba has a definite advantage over lemongrass oil. The citral contents of the two oils are almost equal. However, lemongrass oil has a superior odor tenacity due to its heavy sesquiterpene part, with a tone out of sweet and moderately pleasant notes. Furthermore, the oil of Litsea Cubeba has also a pleasant taste and a rectified oil could be used in flavor work as a modifier for lemon and lime flavors and as a general freshener in fruit flavors. For use in perfumes, litsea cubeba oil could replace lemongrass oil to a certain degree, but the Chinese oil would probably find better use in artificial verbena type bases, colognes, household sprays and air fresheners.
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