Volatile composition of eight blueberry cultivars and their relationship with sensory attributes

Abstract The volatile compositions of eight blueberry cultivars (‘Premier’, ‘Gardenblue’, ‘Legacy’, ‘Brigitta’, ‘Misty’, ‘O’Neal’, ‘Bluerain’ and ‘Northland’) grown in the middle region of China were investigated. Volatiles were extracted by headspace solid‐phase microextraction (HS‐SPME) and analysed by gas chromatography—quadrupole time of flight—mass spectrometry (SPME‐GC‐QTOF‐MS). A total of 28 volatiles were identified and quantified, including 5 esters, 11 terpenoids, 3 aldehydes, 6 alcohols and 3 volatile phenols. Different blueberry cultivars had distinct varietal volatile profiles. Rabbiteye cultivars, ‘Premier’ and ‘Gardenblue’, were characterized by a large amount of esters, especially for ethyl acetate. ‘Misty’ had the highest terpenoid content. Principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares regression (PLS) were selected to correlate the chemical data with sensory perceptions. PCA showed that esters were dominant in rabbiteye blueberries, especially for ethyl acetate. No distinct pattern of volatile profile was found for the highbush and half‐highbush blueberry cultivars. PLS showed that the grassy descriptor was positively correlated with linalool and hexanal. The minty descriptor was positively correlated with eucalyptol.