Determination of volatile chemical constitutes in tea by simultaneous distillation extraction, vacuum hydrodistillation and thermal desorption

Generally the volatile compounds of tea are quite complicated and are found at trace levels (around 0.1% in total). The top-note of tea usually contains 40-100 main ingredients and is an analytical challenge to obtain qualitative and quantitative information of these volatile constitutes. The objective of this work is to apply the most suitable methods such as simultaneous distillation extraction, vacuum hydrodistillation extraction and direct thermal desorption to accurately determine the chemical components of a top-brand Chinese green tea and to compare the three volatile extraction methods. The analytical results are double confirmed by GC-sniffing, authentic raw materials and internal expert evaluation by reconstituting the top-note profile of the analyzed tea.