Effect of Low-temperature Multi-process on Aromatic Quality of Black Tea

Aromatic components of black tea samples made from various processing technologies were extracted by means of simultaneous distillation extraction (SDE) for the subsequent identifications by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). A total of 54 aromatic constituents were identified with 30 of them commonly found in all samples. The major aromatics included hydrocarbons, alcohols, aldehydes, and esters. By comparison, the low-temperature, multi-process technology increased the contents of benzaldehyde, indole, hexanoic acid-3-hexenyl ester, hexanoic acid hexyl ester, cis-jasmone, α-farnesene, nerolidol, and cedrol that constitute the flowery and fruity fragrance, and decreased that of the undesirable 2-hexenal with grassy note in the tea. Thus, the newly developed process appeared to have improved the aromatic quality of the black tea.