Why Does Durian Smell So Bad?

When I first looked into this, I expected one main bad-smelling chemical to be doing most of the work. Nope. Researchers keep finding a whole mix.

A 2025 review of durian smell research found two big groups coming up again and again: sulphur compounds and esters. The sulphur side helps explain the onion and cabbage smells. Esters are behind a lot of the sweeter, fruitier smells.

Researchers looking closely at Thai Monthong durian found smells they described as fruity, roasted onion, rotten onion, cabbage and sulphur.

So when two people describe the same durian in completely different ways, they might both be picking up something that is really there.

A lot of that punch comes from sulphur

If durian has ever reminded you of onions, that is actually a pretty good observation.

Researchers have found several sulphur compounds in durian. Some have been linked with smells such as onion, cabbage, roasted onion and rotten onion. It is not exactly a subtle mix.

The review of durian smell research pulls together studies on different durians and keeps coming back to the same thing: sulphur is a big part of why the smell is so easy to recognise.

The strange thing is that you do not always need much of a smell for your nose to notice it. We can pick up some compounds at tiny amounts. So even if there is not loads of one chemical in the fruit, it can still be one of the first things you smell.

That helps explain how opening one fruit can suddenly make it feel like the durian has taken over the whole room.

The part everyone forgets: durian also smells fruity

This bit gets lost once people start talking about bins and old onions.

Durian also contains a group of compounds called esters. You do not need to remember the name. The useful bit is that esters are behind lots of familiar sweet and fruity smells in food, and they are a big part of durian too.

In research on Monthong durian, one of the strongest fruity-smelling compounds was called ethyl 2-methylbutanoate. Horrible name, simple point: it smells fruity.

So now you have sweet fruit smells sitting right next to onion, cabbage and sulphur smells.

Researchers even tested this. In an experiment using Monthong durian, they managed to get surprisingly close to the smell of the pulp using just two of the strongest compounds: one fruity and one that smelled like roasted onion.

I love that detail. For all the complicated science behind durian, you can get surprisingly close to its famous smell with fruit and onion.

Scientists even looked at the durian's genes

Then I got to the genome study, and this got even more interesting.

In 2017, researchers published the draft genome of Durio zibethinus. In simple terms, they looked at what was happening inside the fruit while it was making all these smells.

They found that parts of the fruit's biology linked with sulphur were especially active as the durian ripened. They also found extra copies of a gene family connected with an enzyme called methionine gamma-lyase, or MGL for short.

MGL helps break down sulphur-containing amino acids, which can then feed into the sulphur compounds we smell. The study found four MGL genes in durian, compared with two in cacao and one in cotton among the plants they compared it with.

Later research found another piece of the puzzle. Scientists found an amino acid called ethionine in durian flesh. The fruit can use it to make ethanethiol, one of the compounds linked with that strong onion smell.

The study found ethionine in several durian varieties, including Monthong, Krathum, Chanee and Kanyao.

So the smell is not just something sitting around the outside of the fruit. The durian is actively making it as part of what happens while it ripens.

Why ripe durian gets even smellier

Anyone who has left fruit to ripen already knows the smell changes. Durian just takes that idea much further.

Durian keeps ripening after it is picked. As that happens, the flesh softens, the flavour changes and the smell changes with it.

The genome work found that genes linked with sulphur were more active during ripening. The later ethionine study found that levels of both ethionine and ethanethiol increased as the fruit ripened too.

So yes, the durian sitting in the corner really can seem to get louder without making a sound.

Not every durian smells the same

Another thing I had not really thought about before reading the research: "durian smell" is not one fixed smell.

Different varieties can give off a different mix of smells. Ripeness matters too, and what happens to the fruit after it is picked can make a difference.

Even the research in this article comes from different durians. Monthong appears a lot in smell studies, the genome was put together from Musang King, and the later ethionine research looked at several varieties.

So two people trying durian for the first time might genuinely be smelling different versions of it.

Once you start looking into durian culture, this makes much more sense. Thailand, Malaysia and other parts of Southeast Asia have their own well-known varieties and their own ideas about what makes a good durian.

If you are more interested in what happens when you actually eat one, our first-timer's guide to what durian tastes like looks at the flavour, texture and why one durian can taste very different from another.

Why can two people smell the same durian and say completely different things?

Read enough descriptions of durian and they get wild.

Onion. Custard. Cheese. Petrol. Caramel. Garlic. Socks. Tropical fruit. Sewage. Vanilla. Cabbage.

Some of that comes from the fruit itself. There are lots of different smells in there at once, so one person might notice the onion side first while someone else notices the sweet fruit.

Your own memories matter too. If one smell reminds you straight away of cooked cabbage or onion, that can shape how the whole fruit smells to you.

And expectations definitely do not help. If someone hands you a piece of durian while telling you it smells like a bin, you are not exactly going in fresh.

In Thailand, durian is much more than a dare

Online, durian is often treated like a challenge. Open it, watch someone's face, film the reaction.

In Thailand, that is only one tiny part of it.

Go around markets, supermarkets and fruit shops and you quickly see that durian is something people choose properly. Different varieties have names. Ripeness matters. Texture matters. People have favourites. A good durian is not something you simply try to survive.

That is why calling it "the world's smelliest fruit" misses a lot. The smell is genuinely interesting, but there is a whole food culture around the fruit too. Once you know that, the joke becomes one small part of a much bigger story.

And somehow the smell ended up on signs

Travel around parts of Southeast Asia and you will sometimes see signs telling you not to bring durian into trains, hotels, vehicles or other enclosed spaces.

The funny thing is that you often do not need any words. A spiky fruit inside a red circle with a line through it is enough.

I find that brilliant. A fruit became familiar enough that a crossed- out picture of it can tell you the rule on its own.

The reason is pretty obvious. Put a ripe durian in a closed, air-conditioned space and that smell is going to hang around.

But the story is not simply "smelly fruit gets banned". The rules change depending on the transport system or place, and those no-durian signs have become one of those small travel details people remember.

See the durian-inspired prints

From fruit stall to print

Why we turned durian into a print

Durian is exactly the sort of thing we end up getting interested in. You see it everywhere in parts of Southeast Asia, people recognise it straight away, and once you start looking into it there is loads behind it.

The shape is brilliant. The smell has a whole story of its own. Markets have their own culture around it. Then there are the no-durian signs. It gives us something real to work with rather than just a random tropical fruit.

That is what we want from our prints: something that looks good, but also has a real story behind it.

Explore the prints See the Smelly Durian print