THE SENSORY ASSESSMENT OF THE THIRST-QUENCHING CHARACTERISTICS OF DRINKS

A list of seven sensory attributes was derived from focus groups, whic h consumers felt were important in influencing the thirst-quenching pr operties of drinks: acid, astringent, carbonation,fruity, strength of flavour, sweetness and thickness. Eight drink products mere chosen fro m the groups to undertake further sensory and consumer research. A tra ined panel ranked the drinks according to increasing intensity of seve n attributes. Thurstonian scaling and correspondence analysis were use d to derive an interval scale for each of the attributes, thus allowin g the degree of difference between the Products to be quantified. A st aff 'consumer' panel ranked the Products according to perception of th irst-quenching, and provided acceptability judgements. Information fro m the two panels was related using correlations, partial least squares regression and correspondence analysis. Acid was most associated with thirst-quenching, whilst sweetness and thickness were least associate d. Thirst-quenching and acceptability were closely related for the gro up of products investigated. The we of correspondence analysis war sho wn to be a very useful technique for the data collected. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.