Abstract: The aroma components in Silver Needle Tea and White Peony Tea were extracted by headspace solid-phase micro-extraction (HS-SPME) and analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Results showed that the aroma components in white tea had obvious difference compared with green tea and black tea processed with the same variety of tea leaves. The aromatic components in white tea were mainly alcohols, the content of alcohols in Silver Needle Tea and White Peony Tea reached 70.74% and 60.13% respectively, which was much higher than that in green tea (27.56%) and black tea (45.30%). The content of esters of white tea was higher but the content of aldehydes, ketones and hydrocarbon compounds was lower than those in green tea and black tea. Acids and heterocyclic oxygen compounds were not found in white tea. The major aromatic components in white tea were β-linalool and its oxides, geraniol, methyl salicylate, phenylethyl alcohol and benzyl alcohol, which accounted for 35.70%, 23.47%, 5.87%, 7.06% and 2.02%, of the total aroma extraction of Silver Needle Tea, 35.40%, 11.94%, 10.72%, 6.80% and 2.71% of the total aroma extraction of White Peony Tea respectively.

Key words: white tea, HS-SPME, tea aroma components, GC-MS