###### Abstract  
The aroma fingerprints and discrimination analysis of shiitake mushrooms under different drying conditions were performed by GC-IMS, GC-MS, and descriptive sensory analysis (DSA) with advanced chemometric methods. Three samples (A, B, and C) were treated with varied drying degree and rate. The sample A and C were at the same drying degree and the sample B and C were at the same drying rate. The GC-IMS volatile fingerprints, including the three-dimensional topographic map, topographic map, and gallery plot, showed that 29 compounds showed higher signal intensities in sample B. Moreover, 28 volatile compounds were identified by HS-SPME-GC-MS and only 8 compounds were ever detected by GC-IMS. The sample B not only had more varieties of volatile compounds, but also showed significant higher contents than sample A and C, especially C8 compounds (\(p<0.05\)). Additionally, sample B showed the highest intensity in mushroom-like, chocolate-like, caramel, sweat, seasoning-like, and cooked potato-like odors by DSA. PCA, fingerprint similarity analysis (FSA) and PLSR further demonstrated that the sample B was different from sample A and C. These results revealed that samples with different drying degree were different and drying degree exerted more influence on the volatile flavor quality than the drying rate. This study will provide a foundation and establish a set of comprehensive and objective methods for further flavor analysis. a 2021 1 December 2021 3 December 2021 3 December 2021 30 December 2021 3021 3021 3021 3021 3021 3021 3021  
processing industry, due to its low cost, easy control, short process time, and uniformity and hygiene for industrial food applications [7; 12]. Flavor, as an important quality indicator of products, has gained more attention from manufacturers and researchers. Comparative studies on the flavor of shiitake mushrooms processed by HAD and other dried methods have been carried out in recent years. [PERSON] et al. [7] compared the effects of HAD, vacuum drying, microwave drying, and microwave vacuum drying on volatile compounds of shiitake mushrooms. [PERSON], [PERSON], [PERSON], [PERSON], [PERSON], and [PERSON] [13] conducted comparative analysis on volatile compounds of dried shiitake mushrooms using HAD, infrared drying, and intermittent microwave coupled with hot air drying. [PERSON] et al. [14] investigated the flavor profiles and flavor-related compounds of HAD, compared with vacuum freeze drying and the combined drying. Additionally, [PERSON] et al. [15] studied the aroma profile of shiitake mushrooms during HAD through volatile compounds and sensory analysis. [PERSON], [PERSON], [PERSON], [PERSON] and [PERSON] [16] reported that C8 compounds (including 1-octen-3-ol, 3-octanol, 2-octen-1-ol, 1-octanol, octanal, 2-octenal, and 3-octanone) showed significant decline (\(p<0.05\)) during the early stage of hot air drying, while the sulfur compounds (including the thioether compounds and cyclic sulfur compounds) increased during the later stage, either in pileus or stipes of shiitake mushrooms. However, few researches focused on the effects of different drying rate and drying degree on the flavor of shiitake mushrooms. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) is a maturely analytical mass spectrometry technique and regarded to be the \"gold standard\" for the analysis of volatile flavor and fragrance compounds. It can combine with headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) in food analysis [17; 18]. HS-SPME-GC-MS integrates the safety and accuracy of HS-SPME, high separation ability of GC, and the superiority of mass spectrometry in the identification of substances [19]. This allows it to be applied in qualitative and quantitative analysis of volatile components and provide details of compounds in food analysis. However, it is a time-consuming operation [20; 21].