Unraveling the mysterious jujube-like aroma in Pu-erh tea: Decoding the material basis for distinctive aroma formation

Abstact The jujube-like aroma is widely regarded as a noble aroma of Pu-erh tea (PET), but the key odor-active compounds remain unclear. Thus, the molecular sensory science approaches were used to decode the key odor-active compounds of PET with jujube-like aroma. Sixty-eight volatiles were identified in both PETs and jujube sample. Among them, 19 odor-active compounds were identified by relative odor activity value (ROAV) and Pearson correlation analysis. Aroma recombination experiment successfully reproduced the characteristic jujube-like aroma of PET. Omission experiments identified 17 aroma compounds have significant contributions ( p  < 0.05), with 9 key odor-active compounds including 1-octen-3-ol, hexanal, etc. ( p  < 0.001). This study elucidates the key odor-active compounds of jujube-like aroma in PET, to provide a theoretical reference for the targeting process regulation of the product.