XU Lili, WANG Jiatong, ZHU Yin, SHI Jiang, LIN Zhi
The combination of natural flowers and fruits with traditional tea can significantly enrich the flavor of blended tea. The blended peach oolong tea has the characteristic flavor quality of oolong tea and peach, which is popular in tea consumers. However, there is a lack of systematic research on the formation mechanism of the characteristic flavor quality of commercially available blended peach oolong tea. In this study, stir bar sorptive extraction (SBSE) combined with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was used to analyze 14 blended peach oolong tea samples with typical “peach fragrance” properties. A total of 14 alcohols, 3 phenols, 3 nitrogen heterocycles, 6 oxygen heterocycles, 8 lactones, 14 aldehydes, 16 ketones, 8 alkenes, 5 organic acids and 41 esters were identified. Among them, γ-decalactone (16.75%), γ-undecalactone (11.72%), linalool (10.31%), δ-decalactone (10.23%), phytol acetate (5.28%), γ-octanolactone (4.77%), trans-β-ionone (3.30%) were the most abundant volatile components. In addition, the results of sensory evaluation and relative odor activity value (ROAV) analysis show that trans-β-ionone, damascenone, linalool, δ-decalactone, isoamyl acetate, γ-undecanoic acid lactone, phytol acetate and ethyl caproate were the key flavor contributing compounds of blended peach oolong tea, and their contributions to “peach fragrance” were further analyzed by comparing with the aroma components of peach essential oil. The results of this study enriched the theoretical basis of aroma quality chemistry of blended tea, and provided scientific basis for cross-border utilization and quality evaluation of traditional tea and natural flowers and fruits.