Comparative Analysis of Aroma Components Among Major Cultivar Types of Nicotiana Tabacum L.

The aroma components among major cultivar types of N.tabacum L. including common flue-cured tobacco, special aroma flue-cured tobacco, oriental tobacco and sun/air-cured tobacco were analyzed by Gas Chromatography. Fifty-two aroma components were detected and 6 components were significantly correlated with type classification of tobacco. Based on the 6 aroma components, special aroma flue-cured tobacco, oriental tobacco and sun/air-cured tobacco clustered together and common flue-cured tobacco came into another cluster. To evaluate the aroma phenotype of the materials in this study, sensory evaluation was developed and the results showed that special aroma flue-cured tobacco, oriental tobacco and sun/air-cured tobacco all possessed a characteristic aroma of oriental tobacco-like while common flue-cured tobacco didn’t, which was coincident with the cluster analysis. Therefore, we analyzed the aroma components comparatively between the two clusters and there were 26 aroma component detected significant difference at 0.05 or 0.01 levels. Except palmitic-acid and 2-methyltetrahydrofuran-3-one, the others 24 contents of aroma components in flue-cured tobacco were lower than other tobacco types. This study provided biology and applied chemistry research foundation for tobacco types classification and special aroma detection.