Comparative Analysis of the Aroma Components in Five Kinds of Dark Tea

The sensory evaluation and headspace solid-phase micro-extraction coupled to gas chromatography-mass spectrometry(HS-SPME/GC-MS)were applied to analyze the aroma qualities and aroma components of five typical dark teas in this paper. The results showed that in total 83 aroma constituents were identified and 30 of them were common to all the tested samples with the dominant ones being alcohols,aldehydes,ketones,aromatic hydrocarbons,alkenes and esters. However,the aroma components of five kinds dark tea had significant difference. Qingzhuan tea was characterized as stale flavor,aldehydes and ketones,including(E,E)-2,4-heptadienal,β-ionone and hexanal were the dominant aroma substances. Fuzhuan tea had arohid flavor originated from alcohols and aromatic hydrocarbons,of which the major volatile components were linalool,toluene and 1,3-dimetoxybenzene. Liubao tea had pure aroma,alcohols and aldehydes,including linalool,cedrol and limonene were the dominant aroma substances. Pu'er tea had lasting stale flavor originated from alcohols and aldehydes,which the major volatile components were hexanal,1,2,3-trimethoxybenzene and linalool oxide. Kangzhuan tea had pure aroma,aldehydes and ketones,including hexanal,α-ionone,(E)-geranylacetone and β-ionone. In comparison,there were remarkable differences in flavor and aroma composition among the five types of dark tea,which might be related to the tea varieties and processing technologies.