Study of characteristic aroma components of baked Wujiatai green tea by HS-SPME/GC-MS combined with principal component analysis

Abstract

In this study, the aroma components of six Wujiatai green teas were extracted and identified using headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) coupled with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), and principal component analysis (PCA) was further used to reveal possible differences in these teas based on their aroma components. The results showed that, although there are some similarities in the aroma composition and content between Wujiatai green tea and regular green and black teas, the former had its own unique aroma characteristics. We suggest that the ‘baking’ procedure of Wujiatai green tea possibly causes the formation and/or increase of some aroma components, thus resulting in a more durable and prominent aroma characteristic as well as superior quality compared with the other teas investigated in this paper.