Abstract:In order to evaluate the flavor quality stability of peppermint essential oils, a quantitative analysis method based on an optimized gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) technique was developed using the 2-methoxy-3-methylpyrazine as internal standard. To analyze the stability of the 5 peppermint flavor samples, similarity degree and relative standard deviation were calculated and cluster analysis (CA) was conducted. One hundred and twenty three flavor components were determined. The main volatile components were menthol, anethol, carvone, menthone, and the others. The similarity degrees of 2-pinene and the other 40 components were higher than 0.99. These 40 components could be used as fingerprints of the peppermint flavors. The results of relative standard deviation and CA showed that there existed differences between the 5 peppermint flavor samples. The results indicated that GC-MS with CA could be used for the analysis of flavor quality stability of peppermint flavors.
