Abstract
Essential oil in tobacco leaves influences the taste and aroma of cigarette smoke and is important to tobacco quality. This study was conducted to investigate the change in the level of essential oil components during flue-curing process of two flue-cured tobaccos, NC82 and KEl14. Flue-curing process was divided by six steps; harvest stage, the end of yellowing stage, the middle of color fixing stage, the end of color fixing stage, the middle of midrib drying stage, full-cured stage. NC82 in each stage contained 0.28%, 0.30%, 0.35%, 0.36%, 0.40% and 0.42% essential oil, respectively, and KF114 were 0.29%, 0.31%, 0.34%, 0.36%, 0.39% and 0.41%, respectively. Almost all hydrocarbons on the basis of relative peak area were gradually increased in two varieties with curing, neophytadiene content in them was highest at the full-cured stage. Most of alcohols and esters with curing showed a declining trend, but benzyl alcohol was increased in two tobaccos. Ketones were largely increased at the midrib drying stage during the curing process, especially, the most largely increasing constituent was $\beta$-damascenone among them. The content of 2-butylterahydrofuran, heterocyclic compounds, was largely increased at tile color fixing stage. There was no considerable difference between NC82 and KFl14 at the GC profile of essential oil and the pattern of each components during flue-curing process.