Abstract: The objective of the current study was to explore the effect of different drying methods on the aroma compound composition of red jujubes. Fresh Hami jujubes from Xinjiang and dried jujubes obtained by different drying methods, namely, hot air drying at 40 ℃ and 45 ℃, sun drying, and shade drying were analyzed by head-space solid phase micro-extraction coupled with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) for their aroma compound composition. The results showed that a 50/30 μm divinylbenzene/carboxen/polydimethylsiloxane (DVB/CAR/PDMS) fiber exhibited high sensitivity and selectivity in the extraction of aroma compounds. A total of 66 aroma compounds were identified from five samples, the predominant ones being aldehydes, esters, acids and ketone. Principal component analysis (PCA) was adopted to investigate the eight main aroma compounds for Chinese jujube. Jujubes dried by hot air at 45 ℃ had the best aroma quality, followed by those dried at 40 ℃ and the sun dried ones, and the aroma quality of the shade dried samples was the worst.

Key words: jujube, drying, aroma compounds, principal component analysis