Abstract: The essential oils extracted from laurel leaf with three methods(supercritical CO₂ extraction,subcritical CO₂ extraction and steam distillation) were added into cigarettes as a flavor separately.The chemical components in the essential oils were analyzed by GC/MS,and the technical parameters in supercritical and subcritical CO₂ extraction were optimized with orthogonal experiments.The results showed that:1) The yield of essential oil reached 2.37% under the optimized parameters of supercritical CO₂ extraction,55℃,30 MPa,extracting for 1 hour;the yield of essential oil was 2.16% under the optimized parameters of subcritical CO₂ extraction,15℃,20 MPa,extracting for 1 hour.The yield of essential oil extracted by steam distillation was 1.25%.2)66,62 and 49 aroma components were identified in the essential oils obtained by supercritical,subcritical CO₂ extraction and steam distillation,respectively;the major components were 1,8-cineole,α-terpinyl acetate,linalool,their proportions in the essential oils by supercritical CO₂ extraction were 16.43%,15.68%,12.84%;by subcritical CO₂ extraction were 17.22%,16.11%,11.84%;and by steam distillation were 18.39%,15.60%,9.60%,respectively.3) The essential oil obtained by supercritical CO₂ extraction were comparable to that by subcritical CO₂ extraction,and were superior to that by steam distillation in terms of improving aroma quality and aftertaste and reducing irritancy of cigarette smoke.