Index: tika-parsers/src/main/java/org/apache/tika/parser/hdf/HDFParser.java
===================================================================
--- tika-parsers/src/main/java/org/apache/tika/parser/hdf/HDFParser.java	(revision 1667844)
+++ tika-parsers/src/main/java/org/apache/tika/parser/hdf/HDFParser.java	(working copy)
@@ -101,6 +101,8 @@
             group = ncFile.getRootGroup();
         }
 
+        // get file type
+        met.set("File-Type-Description", ncFile.getFileTypeDescription());
         // unravel its string attrs
         for (Attribute attribute : group.getAttributes()) {
             if (attribute.isString()) {
Index: tika-parsers/src/test/java/org/apache/tika/parser/hdf/HDFParserTest.java
===================================================================
--- tika-parsers/src/test/java/org/apache/tika/parser/hdf/HDFParserTest.java	(revision 1667844)
+++ tika-parsers/src/test/java/org/apache/tika/parser/hdf/HDFParserTest.java	(working copy)
@@ -94,5 +94,6 @@
       assertNotNull(metadata);
       assertEquals("Direct read of HDF4 file through CDM library", metadata.get("_History"));
       assertEquals("Ascending", metadata.get("Pass"));
+      assertEquals("Hierarchical Data Format, version 4", metadata.get("File-Type-Description"));
     }
 }