Abstract: Volatile compounds of traditional Chinese soybean paste were extracted with a headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) apparatus and analyzed by GC-MS. A total of 136 volatile flavor compounds incuding esters (22), alcohols (13), aldehydes (12), acids (15), ketones (15), furans (16), sulfur-containing compounds (4), pyrazines, pyrones and other nitrogen-containing compounds (14), phenols (5) and hydrocarbons, amides etc were isolated and identified exactly. Except high content components such as alcohols and acids, the contents of 2-methyl butanal, benzaldehyde, ethyl acetate, isopropene acetate, methyl acetate, furfural, dihydro-2(3H)-furanone, 3-octanone, methionol, 2,6-dimethyl pyrazine were high. The total content of these compounds was 33.23%.