Traditionally, blossom volatile composition has been examined
after concentration using either steam distillation or solvent
extraction. Attaway et al. (1966) used steam distillation to prepare
oils from blossoms and different blossom parts. They found higher
levels of sesquiterpenes such as b-caryophyllene and valencene in
pistil oils compared to petal oils. Unfortunately, the aroma of extracted
oils rarely represents the delicate natural aroma of blossoms
due to thermal artifacts produced during steam distillation
(Toyoda et al., 1993). More recently, headspace analysis has been
employed to sample blossom volatiles in a more representative
way. Toyoda et al. (1993) employed a tenax trap for capturing
the headspace volatiles followed by solvent desorption of the extracts.
This technique concentrates many of the most volatile blossom
components, but some of the most volatile components are
masked under the solvent peak and cannot be analyzed. Solidphase
microextraction (SPME) is a relatively new and solventless
headspace technique which combines both isolation and concentration
of volatiles in a single step.