centaury
spice or herb / spice-centaury
センタウリウム / Centaurium erythraea
Centaury is a candidate bitter plant consisting of the dried flowering aerial parts of centaury. An official assessment report summarizes several secoiridoids.
On this page (6 sections)
Reading the bitterness
Centaury (Centaurium erythraea) is a candidate bitter plant referring to the dried flowering aerial parts. An assessment by the European Medicines Agency identifies secoiridoid glycosides as characteristic bitter constituents, naming swertiamarin as the main constituent and gentiopicroside among minor constituents, and also lists secoiridoid esters such as centapicrin. This is an official assessment report's synthesis of earlier literature, not a direct comparative experiment.
The same assessment also summarizes differences in the composition of bitter constituents between plant parts. It describes fruits as more bitter than flowers, leaves, and stems because of the presence of the secoiridoid esters centapicrin and desacetylcentapicrin. Swertiamarin is described as the main constituent in all parts. This too synthesizes earlier literature and is not a direct comparative experiment.
A separate structural-identification study also reports centapicrin and desacetylcentapicrin as constituents accumulating in the fruit of Centaurium erythraea. This has been checked only at the abstract level; details of the structural identification could not be checked in the full text.
Sources for this overview
Assessment report on Centaurium erythraea Rafn. s.l., herba
Checked for this overview: Used the assessment's list of bitter secoiridoid constituents. / Used the description of bitter-constituent composition by plant part and the fruit's bitterness.
Secoiridoids and xanthones in the genus Centaurium
Checked for this overview: Used a separate report of centapicrin compounds accumulating in fruit.
Hypotheses and recipe candidates for this entry are on the Japanese page.
Structured claims — open a section to read each claim's confidence, evidence and limits
Composition and content (2)
Scope: A literature synthesis of the dried flowering aerial parts in the EMA assessment report
Note: A compositional summary from a public assessment report. It is not a recommendation for food use or a safety endorsement.
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spice-centaury —has_key_bitter_organoleptics→ "Secoiridoid glycosides, mainly swertiamarin, and the very bitter centapicrins"Scope: Layer: literature. An EMA assessment's synthesis of literature on bitter-constituent composition by plant part, not a direct comparative experiment; it compares fruit, flowers, leaves, and stems.
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spice-centaury —has_key_bitter_organoleptics→ "An official assessment report summarizes that bitter-constituent composition differs among centaury plant parts and that fruits are more bitter than flowers, leaves, and stems because they contain very bitter secoiridoid esters (centapicrin and desacetylcentapicrin)."Culture (1)
Scope: A candidate at the level of general knowledge. Regional and naming differences have not been confirmed.
No source connected — this claim has not been verified yet. It is a general-knowledge placeholder, not a confirmed statement.
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spice-centaury —is_used_as→ "Spices and herbs that add bitter flavor and aroma to dishes and drinks"