Abstract: For the purpose of studying the volatile aroma components in Guangdong black tea and determine the main aroma components, the headspace solid-phase micro-extraction method and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry were used to determine the aroma compounds in black tea samples and their contribution to the total aroma. Results showed that more than 50 aroma compounds were identified including alcohol, ester, aldehyde, ketone, terpene, hydrocarbon etc., among which the alcohol was the most important compounds and ester and aldehyde were next to flower-like, fruit-like, refreshing and sweet aroma were the main character of Guangdong black tea. Linalool, gerariol, methyl salicylate, linalool oxide and nonanal were the five most important compounds, representing 37.55%, 11.90%, 8.89%, 5.4% and 5.21% of the total aroma respectively. The alcohol was the most important compounds in Yingde tea population, the contents of aldehyde and ketone were more in Baimao tea population. Dancong and Fujian tea plant contained more terpene compounds.

Key words: Guangdong black tea, aroma, HS-SPME, GC-MS