Thirteen-Spice Essential Oil
Thirteen-spice essential oil is a compounded flavour oil built to reproduce the aroma of shi san xiang, the thirteen-spice powder used across northern Chinese cooking. It is not a single distilled oil but a blend of the essential oils and oleoresins of the spices that make up the traditional mix, cut with a refined vegetable oil or propylene glycol so that it can be dosed by weight.
The spice list varies between houses, but the usual core is star anise, cassia, fennel, clove, white pepper, dried ginger, cumin, nutmeg, sand ginger, amomum, cardamom, bay and dried citrus peel. The aroma is therefore anethole and eugenol led, with warm cinnamic and terpene notes underneath, and the balance between star anise and clove is what most distinguishes one supplier's version from another.
The product is a yellow to amber mobile oil, soluble in edible oils and ethanol and insoluble in water. It is used where whole or ground spice would be impractical, since the oil disperses evenly, contributes no particulate matter and does not shed colour or grit into a clear sauce.
We source bulk Thirteen-Spice Essential Oil from top China manufacturers for our partners. The manufacturer is in Chongqing. A smaller requirement can ship in a combined container with other ingredients.
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- Function
- Essential oil
Specifications
| Item | Specification |
|---|---|
| Appearance | Clear yellow to amber mobile oil |
| Odour | Warm sweet spice, anise and clove led, characteristic |
| Flavour Profile | Matches retained reference sample on sensory panel |
| Relative Density (20°C) | 0.930 to 0.990 |
| Refractive Index (20°C) | 1.480 to 1.520 |
| Solubility | Soluble in edible oils and ethanol, insoluble in water |
| Moisture | Not more than 0.5 percent |
| Acid Value | Not more than 5.0 mg KOH/g |
| Residual Solvent | Within food ingredient residue limits for the solvent declared |
| Heavy Metals (as Pb) | Not more than 10 mg/kg |
| Lead | Not more than 2 mg/kg |
| Arsenic | Not more than 1 mg/kg |
Common Markets Grades
There is no public standard for this product, so each supplier defines its grades against its own profile, and buyers work to a retained reference sample. The main commercial variables are the strength of the blend, expressed as the dosage in parts per thousand needed to match a given weight of the powder, the diluent used, and whether the product is oil soluble, water dispersible through an added emulsifier, or spray dried onto maltodextrin as a powder.
Blends built entirely from steam-distilled essential oils give a cleaner and lighter aroma, while versions that include oleoresins carry more of the heavier, non-volatile character of the ground spice and hold up better through retorting and long cooking. Both forms are traded, and the specification sheet identifies which route was used.
Applications
- Braised and red-cooked meat dishes, where it replaces a spice bag and leaves no residue to strain out
- Marinades and injection brines for beef, pork and poultry
- Sausage, ham and cured meat production, dosed by weight into the emulsion
- Instant noodle and convenience meal seasoning oil sachets
- Compound seasoning powders and rubs, after plating onto salt or maltodextrin
- Stuffings and fillings for dumplings, buns and pastries
- Retorted and frozen ready meals, where the aroma survives thermal processing better than ground spice
- Savoury snack seasoning applied through an oil slurry during tumbling
- Braising and stewing sauce bases for foodservice
China Manufacturers of Thirteen-Spice Essential Oil
Top Thirteen-Spice Essential Oil manufacturers in China.
Company names and logos are the property of the manufacturers themselves. They are listed here because our own directory records them as producing this ingredient. A listing is not an endorsement by them, and we do not represent them or speak on their behalf.
Regulatory Status
Compliance is assessed on the constituents rather than on the blend as a whole. In the United States the spices in the mix and their essential oils and oleoresins appear among the materials generally recognised as safe for their intended use in food under 21 CFR 182.10 and 182.20, and the individual flavour materials carry FEMA GRAS listings. Extraction solvent residues in the oleoresin fraction are controlled by the residue limits applied to food ingredients.
In the European Union the blend is used as a natural flavouring preparation under Regulation (EC) No 1334/2008, so it carries no E number and sits outside the food additive lists. That regulation also sets maximum levels for certain naturally occurring substances in flavourings, including estragole and methyl eugenol, which is relevant here because star anise, fennel and clove all contribute them, so the finished blend is checked against those limits for the food categories it is sold into. Any emulsifier or carrier added to make a dispersible or powdered version is a food additive in its own right and is declared separately.
Manufacturing Process
Each constituent oil is produced separately. Dried spices are cleaned, milled and steam distilled in stainless steel stills, the condensate is separated in a Florentine flask and the crude oil is dried and polish filtered. Spices whose character sits largely in a non-volatile fraction, such as ginger and pepper, are instead extracted with a food grade solvent or with supercritical carbon dioxide, and the solvent is stripped under vacuum to leave an oleoresin.
Compounding is a weigh-and-mix operation. The heavier oleoresins are cut with diluent first to a workable viscosity, the volatile oils are added last and at ambient temperature so that the top notes are not lost, and the batch is mixed under low shear. The blend is then compared against a retained reference by sensory panel and by gas chromatography, adjusted, filtered and packed under nitrogen. Water dispersible versions have an emulsifier incorporated at the blending stage, and powdered versions are spray dried or plated on a carrier.
