Characterization of the Key Aroma Compounds in Two Commercial Dark Chocolates with High Cocoa Contents by Means of the Sensomics Approach.

The overall aroma of two orthonasally distinguishable dark chocolates with high cocoa content (90% CC and 99% CC) was decoded using the systematic sensomics approach, including solvent extraction, separation of the volatiles, identification using aroma extract dilution analysis (AEDA) based on gas chromatography-olfactometry (GC-O) combined with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), quantitation by stable isotope dilution analysis (SIDA), calculation of odor activity values (OAVs), and recombination experiments. Sixty-nine aroma-active compounds were identified and quantitation of 49 compounds revealed 28 odorants in 90% CC and 30 aroma-active compounds in 99% CC with OAVs ≥ 1. Among them, dimethyl trisulfide, acetic acid, 2-methoxyphenol, 3-methylbutanoic acid, phenylacetic acid, vanillin, and linalool showed the highest OAVs. Subsequently, very high similarities of the reconstitution models, containing all odorants with OAVs ≥ 1 in their naturally occurring concentrations in odorless sunflower oil as matrix, proved the correct identification and quantitation of all key odorants in both dark chocolates.