AbstractVolatiles of six sweet orange essential oils with different origins were characterized by descriptive sensory analysis, gas chromatography‐mass spectrometry (GC‐MS) and gas chromatography‐olfactometry (GC‐O). Six attributes (green, fruity, peely, fatty, floral and wood) were selected to assess sweet orange essential oils, in which 64 volatile compounds were detected by GC‐MS. Monoterpenes constituted the largest chemical group among the volatiles of the essential oils. Thirty‐one aroma compounds having more than a 50% detection frequency and large span were selected as major odour active compounds correlated with sensory evaluation assessed by partial least squares regression (PLSR). The correlation result showed α‐pinene, sabinene, limonene, δ‐terpinolene, hexanal, octanal, decanal and dodecanal were typical aroma compounds, which co‐varied with a characteristic aroma of the sweet orange essential oil. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.