Colour and Aroma in Virginia Tobaccos as Influenced by the Polyphenol and Essential Oil Cultivar Characteristics: a Chemometric Approach

ABSTRACT

The influence of polyphenol and essential oil characteristics of Virginia cultivars on the colour of dry tobacco and the aroma of tobacco smoke was studied by applying a chemometric approach. A group of introduced Virginia tobaccos and a local Virginia cultivar V0454 used as a standard were involved in the study. To obtain primary data on the polyphenol pattern related to colour estimation high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was used, whereas capillary gas chromatography (CGC) was applied to get information on the neutral fraction of essential oil (NFEO), related to aroma characteristics. The chromatographic data were processed by means of pattern recognition method (PRM), and the similarity indexes (Is, %) between the introduced cultivars, as well as between them and the standard, were calculated. It was established that all introduced Virginia cultivars are distinct from the standard in both polyphenol and NFEO pattern. The data point that the colour of dry tobacco and the aroma of tobacco smoke are determined by the genotype-specific composition of the polyphenol complex and NFEO fraction, respectively, varying in the different cultivars. PRM processing of individual components of the HPLC polyphenol profile and the CGC pattern of NFEO allows to distinguish between the Virginia cultivars studied and to classify them with regard to their colour and aroma performance.