DESCRIPTION OF THE FLAVOR OF COMTE CHEESE

Before 1990 it was impossible to describe the flavour complexity of Co mte cheeses because of a lack of appropriate terminology. The attribut e 'fruity' was often used to cover this complexity. Describing and sor ting the different aromatic notes yielded a list of 91 flavour attribu tes arranged within seven aromatic groups: lactic, fruity, vegetal, ro asted animal, spicy and 'others'. The cheeses, from 20 different chees e plants and from different seasons were profiled by a trained sensory panel. The statistical analysis of these sensory data demonstrates th at every aromatic group is required for the description of the Comte f lavour. Although the correlations between the attributes were not very high, it was possible to establish a list of 28 key attributes Those were the attributes most often quoted or characteristic of a given che ese. The aromatic map of the cheeses, drawn from this list of 28 key a ttributes was mostly defined by the fruity character and by the intens ity of flavour, both of them appearing to be fairly independent.