ABSTRACT
In this study, the flavor compounds of Camellia seed oils obtained by four processes were characterized by headspace solid phase microextraction/gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (HS-SPME/GC/MS). A variety of about 76 volatile flavor compounds were identified from all the oil samples. Of the four processing processes, the pressing process can retain a lot of volatile components. Among these, compounds nonanal and 2-undecenal were predominantly in the majority of the samples. Meanwhile, other compounds such as octyl ester formic acid, octanal and 2-nonenal (E), 3-acetyldihydro 2(3H)-furanone, (E)-2-decenal, dihydro-5-penty 2(3H)-furanone, nonanoic acid, and dodecane were also among the most consistently found compounds among the oil samples analyzed. The principal component analysis carried out to categorize the data produced seven clusters of the total oil samples based on the number of flavor compounds obtained in each sample. This categorization would lead to understanding the components which highly contributed to the characteristic volatile flavor and build up the flavor profile of Camellia seed oil.
