Understanding the flavor signature of the rice grown in different regions of China via metabolite profiling

Rice is the staple food of most people in China. The fragrance of rice varies from region to region, and high-quality rice always has a pleasant aroma. To protect consumers from misleading information and fraud, and to serve the interests of high-quality rice producers, and to develop a rice regional protection system in China, the phenotype of rice grown in different Chinese regions needs to be known. Thus the flavor phenotype of the rice cultivated in China is studied.The volatile organic compounds of rice samples in China have good classification potential and the 37 rice products investigated herein may be divided into three main categories: north-eastern rice, central and southern rice, and Shanghai rice. Orthogonal projection to latent structure-discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) model exhibited a good discrimination for rice samples in China. Based on selected distinctive biomarker compounds, data-driven soft independent modeling of class analogy was successfully applied to identifying the origin of samples. Moreover, the differential volatile compounds identified in this study endow the rice samples with distinctive flavor characteristics.The results of this study are valuable in understanding the difference of flavor characteristics of rice grown in different regions of China, and in the identification of geographical origins to develop China's geographic protection product industry. © 2021 Society of Chemical Industry.