Comparative study on characteristic aroma components of black teas from different regions

The aroma compositions of 7 kinds of black tea from different regions were extracted by HS-SPME,and comparatively analyzed on GC-MS. 149 kinds of aromatic components were detected.The ingredients for the characteristic aroma of Chinese black tea were mainly ascertained to be alcohols and aldehydes,while esters and alkenes were significantly higher for black tea from India and Sri Lanka.The principal component analysis( PCA) results showed that the black tea could be divided into 3 groups for characteristic aroma: 1. Qimen and Jin Junmei black tea,which contained high level of geraniol and showed a rose-like aroma; 2. Yunnan and Yingde black tea which contained high level of linalool and showed aroma as flower and fruit; 3. India and Ceylon black tea which contained relatively high methyl salicylate had an aroma like wintergreen oil. Various factors affecting tea aroma formation were discussed,including environment conditions,tea varieties and processing methods.