Abstract: The present work was undertaken to analyze the relationships of variations of volatile flavor components with pickling time and salt amount during the pickling of olive for traditional Cantonese-style preserved fruits. The flavor compounds of picked olives derived from different days of pickling with different amounts of salt addition were analyzed by headspace solid-phase micro-extraction (HS-SPME) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Meanwhile, correlation analysis was performed. The results showed that the content of aromatic hydrocarbons in pickled olive was significantly negatively correlated with salt amount, which had a significant positive correlation with alkanes or ketones. Pickling time was significantly negatively correlated with aldehydes, slightly negatively correlated with alkanes and significantly positively correlated with aromatic hydrocarbons. To sum up, partial flavor compounds of pickled olive increases or decreases as the salt addition increases and the pickling time is prolonged; there is a correlation among partial flavor compounds.

Key words: olive, flavor compounds, factor, effect