Abstract:

The flavor quality of tobacco is highly correlated with nicotine content, while the relationship between aroma components and nicotine content is unknown. The aroma constituents come from different precursors and contribute differently to aroma styles. A total of 27 Flue-cured tobacco samples were collected from full aroma tobacco growing areas to investigate the relationship of nicotine and total nitrogen contents with neutral volatile aroma component contents by GC/MS. Results showed that there existed significantly positive quadratic correlation relationship between nicotine, total nitrogen and carotenoid catabolite contents, with the maximum carotenoid catabolites contents at the nicotine content of 3.82%. In the range of nicotine contents from 1.28% to 3.92%, the contents of megastigmatrieonel 2, megastigmatrieonel 4, farnesyl acetone, dihydroactinidiolide, and geranyl acetone kept going up with increasing nicotine content. Significant positive quadratic correlation relationship also existed between nicotine, total nitrogen and solanone, the cembratriendiol catabolite, while the solanone content was highest at the nicotine content of 2.62% and the total nitrogen content of 2.77%, then decreased significantly. Only a very few Mallard reaction compounds had significant correlations with nicotine and total nitrogen. Aromatic amino acid catabolites, neophytadiene, and total amount of volatile aroma compounds had significant quadratic correlations with nicotine and total nitrogen contents, and at the nicotine content of 2.89% and total nitrogen content of 3.05%, the total amount of volatile aroma compounds reached maximum value.

Key words: Flue-cured toacco, Nicotine, Total nitrogen, Aroma components, Relationship