The Vacuum Headspace Method is a very gentle work-up procedure especially suited for the analysis of fruits. Comparison of the Simultaneous Distillation-Extraction Method, the Dynamic Headspace Method, and the Vacuum Headspace Method shows clearly the superior performance of the latter with respect to the sensory impression of the resulting extracts. Sensory evaluation of the vacuum headspace extracts of various fruits (e.g., passion fruit, strawberry, pear, peach, raspberry, cherry) leads to very fruit-typical descriptions. Consequently, the qualitative and quantitative flavor patterns of the analyzed fruits represent the genuine fruit flavors very well.The comparison of the different work-up procedures is explained in detail. Moreover, the volatile constituents of various analyzed fruits are shown and discussed. The importance of individual flavor compounds for the respective fruit flavor is indicated. It is explained how these results can serve as the basis for the composition of a new type of fresh-fruit flavors.The analysis of food flavors has been dramatically improved over the past 30 years, mainly through the invention of new work-up procedures, modern separation techniques (high resolution gas chromatography on fused silica capillaries, high performance liquid chromatography), and more sensitive spectroscopic methods (nuclear magnetic resonance, mass spectrometry, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy) some of them being available as hyphenated techniques (HRGC-MS, HRGC-FTIR). This continuous development has, over the years, led to results and publications about virtually every food flavor. Thousands of flavor compounds have been identified in the different foods and are collected in libraries (7).