Abstract: The relationship of carotenoid and its degradation product contents with the sensory quality of flue-cured tobacco of different flavor styles from typical growing areas were studied with correlation,regression and cluster analysis methods.The results showed that:1) The carotenoids content,proportion of lutein in carotenoids and total content of degradation products in samples from two growing areas of fresh flavor style flue-cured tobacco were significantly or extremely significantly higher than those in robust flavor style flue-cured tobacco from central Henan.Among carotenoid degradation products,β-damascenone exhibited bigger difference between samples of different style tobacco from different growing areas.2) The change of sensory quality of tobacco samples from central Henan against carotenoid contents could be represented by a parabolic curve,the samples with carotenoid contents ranged from 91.7 to 126.8 μg/g offered better sensory quality.The sensory quality of samples from eastern Yunnan was significantly negatively correlated to carotenoid content.The sensory quality of samples from western Fujian significantly positively correlated to lutein proportion,which was relatively better in the samples with the lutein proportion ranged from 47.6% to 51.3%.3) The correlation between degradation products of carotenoids and sensory quality was relatively weaker,though there existed a negative correlation in samples from western Fujian.