Detection of Methyl Salicylate in Black Tea Using a Quartz Crystal Microbalance Sensor

Methyl salicylate plays an important role in the constitution of black tea aroma. This paper presents a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) sensor to detect methyl salicylate from the black tea aroma. The sensor is developed using maltodextrin (MDEX). Methyl salicylate is an organic ester, naturally produced by many species of plants. It is used as a fragrance, in foods and beverages, and in ointments. Extensive experiments have been carried out with MDEX-coated QCM sensor and it is observed that the sensor offers better sensitivity for the methyl salicylate in comparison with other important constituents of black tea like linalool, geraniol, linalool oxide, and trans-2-hexenal. Experiments with 32 Darjeeling orthodox black tea samples have been carried out with the developed sensor, which offers 0.982 correlation between the responses of the developed sensor and the concentrations obtained through the reference instrumental technique, i.e., gas chromatography mass spectrometry.