The fresh leaves of spring tea chosen from Xinyang, Huangshan and Hangzhou, were processed into Xinyang maojian, Huangshanmaofeng and Xihulongjing, respectively. Five samples, which three were Xinyangmaojian samples from 3 different corporations and the other two were Huangshanmaofeng and Xihulongjing, were used to extract the aromatic matter with the method of simultaneous distillation and extraction (SDE), and the characteristics and components of the aromatic matter were analyzed by the method of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC–MS) and sensory evaluation. The results indicated that clean aroma was manifested from the three samples of Xinyang- maojian, sweet orchid flavour revealed from Huangshanmaofeng and scorch aroma sent out from Xihulongjing. 74 aroma compounds were detected from the 5 samples, 24 of them were shared by all samples. Alcohols took most part of the aroma constituents. The main aroma compounds of Xinyangmaojian tea were beta linalool, nonanal, epoxy linalol, trans-geraniol, delta-cadinene, trans-nerolidol, palmitic acid and trans-phytol respectively. The main aroma compounds of Huangshanmaofeng tea were palmitic acid, beta linalool, trans-geraniol, nonanal, hexanal, trans-phytol, epoxy linalol, heptanal, benzene acetaldehyde, and two unique aroma matters of phenylacetaldehyde and hotrienol. The main aroma constituents in the Xihulongjing tea were beta linalool, trans-geraniol, epoxylinalol, nonanal, cis-oxide linalool, hexanal, delta cadinene and delta cadinol, and there were more alkane and pyrazine compounds in Xihulongjing tea than the other two teas, but the palmitic acid was not detected.