Abstract: The volatile components of Gougunao tea, Lu Mountain Cloud-Mist tea, and Wuyuan green tea were extracted and identified by headspace solid phase microextraction followed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (HS-SPME-GC-MS). Further, their qualities were discriminated by chemometrics. The results showed that principal component analysis (PCA) could effectively distinguish among Gougunao tea, Lu Mountain Cloud-Mist tea, and Wuyuan Green tea. The results of cluster analysis were consistent with those of PCA, and could objectively reflect the difference in the contents of volatile components among the tea samples. Least squares discriminant analysis revealed 20 characteristic volatile components in the three kinds of tea, namely heptane, 2-pentyl furan, 3-carene, isopulegol, α-terpineol, verbenone, linalool, nonanal, β-cyclocitral, dihydroactinidioide, geraniol, allyl hexanoate, hexenyl butyrate, himachalene, caryophyllene, β-ionone, δ-cadinene, olivetol, nerolido, and cedrol.

Key words: Jiangxi’s famous teas; volatile components; gas chromatography-mass spectrometry; chemometrics