Relationship among Important Aroma Constituents and Smoking Quality of Flue-cured Tobacco

In order to study the relationship among the contents of aroma constituents and the smoking quality of flue-cured tobacco, simple correlation analysis, partial correlation analysis, path analysis and stepwise regression analysis were used to study the correlation between major neutral aroma constituents and aroma quality, fragrance quantity, aftertaste, mixed gas, irritancy, total scores of smoking quality in flue-cured tobacco leaves from Yunnan Province, Fujian Province, Hubei Province. The result showed that neophytadiene, 2-methyltetrahydrofuran-3-one, linalool, megastigmatrienone-3, dihydroactinidiolide, isophorone, γ-butyro-lactone, α-damascone, geranylacetone, 2-acetylpyrrole, linalool oxide, benzyl alcohol, 3-acetylpyridine, pyrrol, phenethyl alcohol and geraniol had strong correlation with smoking quality. Partial correlation and path analysis results showed that 2-methyltetrahydrofuran-3-one, megastigmatrienone-3, dihydroactinidiolide and linalool had great direct positive effect on smoking quality, neophytadiene had great direct negative effect on smoking quality. While β-ionone, 2-methyl-2-hepten-6-one, megastigmatrienone (1. 2. 4), indol, furfural alcohol, furfural and 5-methylfurfural had little effect on smoking quality.