ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Nutr.
Sec. Food Chemistry
Comprehensive analysis of the flavor volatiles and quality characteristics of ginseng products via GC × GC-TOF-MS, aroma profiles and multivariate statistics
Provisionally accepted
- 1Changchun University of Chinese Medicine, Changchun, China
- 2Jilin Tobacco Industry Co. Ltd., Changchun, China
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To explore the differences of flavor quality characteristics of ginseng products, the volatile metabolites of seven products were evaluate from different growth years, growth environments, processing methods, and parts by GC × GC-ToF-MS, sensory evaluation and multivariate statistics. The results showed six-year red ginseng exhibited the highest diversity of volatile metabolites with 2,264 compounds identified, followed by ginseng flowers and ginseng under forest. Odour activity values showed that compounds such as 2,3-Butanedione, Pyrazine, and 2-methoxy-3-(1-methylethyl)-, enhanced the pleasant and buttery flavors of ginseng products. And ginseng flowers displayed more pronounced fruity and citrus flavor characteristics. Additionally, the differences of growing year, growing environment, processing methods and parts on flavor characteristics were analyzed by multivariate statistics. The flavor compounds in ginseng products with a low growth period mainly contribute to sweetness and fruity flavor. Ginseng products after steaming and boiling have more attractive sweet characteristics. The differences in the growth environment significantly affect flavor characteristics including sweetness, greenness, fruity, floral, bitter, herbal and waxy. This study provided a vital reference for the establishment of a convenient detection and identification system linking ginseng raw materials, flavor characteristics, volatile compounds, and product quality control.
Keywords: Ginseng products, GC × GC-TOF-MS, volatile compounds, OAV, Flavor characteristics
Received: 06 Oct 2025; Accepted: 07 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Li, Xu, Zhou, Li, Guo, Lin, Lin and Piao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: He Lin, linhe@ccucm.edu.cn
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