The comparison of content of aroma active compounds in samples of elder berries (Sambucus nigra L.).

abstract

English

Black elder (Sambucus nigra L.) grows wild in several countries of Europe and is cultivated on a small scale in some European countries. It contains many health promoting substances, which could, in the form of new products, enrich the consumer market. Successful commercial use of elderberry fruits depends especially on their good flavour, which is related to the content of volatile aroma active substances. The aroma of elder flowers and elder berries have been characterized before in detail by several authors and more than 100 volatiles have been identified. Jensen et al. divided the aroma compounds of the elderberry into six odour classes: elderberry, flowery, fruity, grassy, agrestic and miscellaneous. Aroma compounds with characteristic elderberry odour are the most important, followed by fruity and flowery groups. The characteristic elderberry odour is related to dihydroedulan, damascenone and ethyl-9-decenoate. In the flowery group (Z)- and (E)-rose oxide, nerol oxide, 1-nonanal and hotrienol contribute significantly with elder flower notes, whereas linalool, terpineol, benzyl alcohol, 2-phenylethanol and phenylacetaldehyde contribute with flowery notes. The fruity odour of elderberry juice appears to be related to alcohols, aldehydes and esters of lower carboxylic acids and lower alcohols. The grassy group is composed of well-known aliphatic aldehydes and alcohols with typical odors of green grass. 1-octen-3-one and 1-octen-3-ol with mushroom note and 3-hydroxy-2-butanone with creamy, buttery note belong to the agrestic group. Benzaldehyde with its candy, sweet note could be placed to miscellaneous group, also lower carboxylic acids and ketones with creamy, oily or buttery odour. The aim of this project was to identify and quantify the volatile aroma active compounds in samples of elderberries grown in Czech Republic. Wild elder and four cultivars of cultivated elderberries (Bohatka, Dana, Albida and Haschberg) were used for analysis. Aroma compounds were extracted by solid phase microextraction method and analysed by GC-FID and GC-MS. In total, 84 aroma compounds were identified and quantified, mainly alcohols, aldehydes and esters. Most of them are well known aroma compounds and have previously been detected in elderberries. However, significant differences in content of single aroma compounds were found among samples, which is in accordance with other authors.

aroma compounds, elder-berries, SPME, GC

VÍTOVÁ, E.; VESPALCOVÁ, M.; LOUPANCOVÁ, B.; DIVIŠOVÁ, R.; SKLENÁŘOVÁ, K.

17. 8. 2011

ČSCH

Brno

0009-2770

Chemické listy

105

18

Czech Republic

s1031

s1032

2