2022 Volume 53 Issue 6 Pages 357-365
The “stored off-flavor” is one of the unfavorable flavors released by several citrus species when stored at low temperature. The degradation in quality due to the stored off-flavor has been a problem with satsuma mandarins (Citrus unshiu Marc.), a major citrus species in Japan. However, information about this problem is fragmented. To develop a method for determining which satsuma mandarins are suffering from stored off-flavors, our group attempted to define the odor characteristics of stored off-flavors through olfactory evaluation and to identify the compounds responsible for off-flavors using samples of satsuma mandarins stored at low temperature. We found that the odor characteristic “grass-like” was stronger in samples stored at a lower temperature (4 °C) than those stored at room temperature (25 °C). The grass-like odor was defined as the stored off-flavor of satsuma mandarins. Following a chemical analysis using gas chromatogram-olfactometry (GC-O) and GC-MS, the stored off-flavor, grass-like, was identified as p-cymenene.