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The amino acid composition of twenty-five honey samples obtained from different regions of Turkey (rhododendron and honeydew honey) was determined by a liquid chromatography–atmospheric pressure chemical ionization–mass spectrometry (LC–APCI–MS). Principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) were used to characterize and classify the honey samples. In rhododendron honeys, major amino acids were detected as aspartic acid, lysine, and arginine, for honeydew honeys, lysine, arginine, and histidine were found, following the proline. Five principal components (PCs) and four main clusters were obtained from the chemometric analysis that classifies the samples. Five PCs were detected to be explanatory of more than 79% of the total variance in the data matrix. It can be concluded that free amino acids are good indicators for determination of botanical origins and chemometric studies are highly useful for honey characterization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article was carried out to characterize and compare the phenolic compounds of Turkish honeydew and nectar honeys which have quite different acceptances by consumers and processing type. Phenolic compounds were identified and quantified with High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Diode Array Detector (HPLC-DAD) system by means of 20 phenolic standards. Some differences were observed between honeydew and nectar honeys. While pinocembrin and quercetin were not determined in the honeydew honeys, these flavonoids were present in the nectar honey samples. While the main compound of honeydew honeys was catechin, it was chlorogenic acid for nectar honeys. In addition to this results, statistically significant correlations were detected among the phenolic compounds such as between caffeic acid and chlorogenic acid (r = 0.908), chlorogenic acid and coumaric acid (r = 0.836), and caffeic acid and coumaric acid (r = 0.893) in the nectar honeys. Phenolic profiles of these honeys may provide a marker for determination the botanical origin of honeys. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]