Aroma characterization of Sardinian strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo L.) honey

Gas chromatographic-mass spectrometric (GC-MS) analysis of the aroma fracti on isolated from several strawberry tree blossom honey samples showed a mar ked predominance of norisoprenoids. Some were identified or tentatively ide ntified as C-9, C-10, and C-13 compounds. For this aspect, the honey is sim ilar to that: from another plant of the Ericaceae family, heather, but is d istinguishable from it due to different concentrations of the compounds com mon to both and the uniqueness of several substances, whose tentative struc tures have been attributed with the support of GC-Fourier Transform Infrare d (FTIR) spectra. Some interesting C-10 aldehyde structures are proposed. M ost compounds could be interrelated in degradation processes, starting from the compounds with the highest molecular weight. Among the samples from di fferent areas of Sardinia, there were important quantitative differences in some of the most abundant compounds.