Sensory Evaluation: “I like it.” “I don’t like it.” Why?

Instructor Discussion/Demo and readings to prepare for class:

o May wish to read p270-273 and 387-395 in On Food and Cooking and Ch 15 & 14 to
better prepare to explain. Stress importance of defining qualities—not just “like” or not or
“good” vs. “bad”—DO NOT USE THESE TERMS!!!!!
o Break students into groups of four for tasting/product evaluation and class discussion.
o Use the foods supplied as follows:
o Per Group of Four
 Muffin: sweetness, crumb, point out small air cell size, grain etc
 Biscuit: texture-flake
 Bread: elastic structure, chewy, dry or moist mouth feel
 Potato chip- mouth feel- fat coating, crunch
 Carrot stick- with soy sauce to dip, sweet, crunch, salty
 Strong Green Tea, unsweetened-bitter, astringent
o Review each component of evaluating a product:

o Taste eg: sweet (sugars), sour (acids), salty (salts), bitter (alkaloids), umami-
savory (amino acids)
o Mouth Feel eg:
 Astringency (tannins)- dry, rough and feeling your mouth pucker ( unripe
banana, tea)
 Irritation/pain/pungency- heat (capsicum), cooling (wintergreen mint),
horseradish and wasabi
 Slimy (cooked mushrooms or okra), crisp, tenderness, toughness, number
of chews, temperature, chewy, stringy, moistness, dryness, stickiness
o Appearance eg: color, shape, texture (crumb, air cell size, uniformity of
cell size, thickness of cell walls, flakiness)
o Aroma (taste + aroma=flavor) eg:
o For vegetables, herbs, spices and fruit-
 “green” like fresh cut leaves-cucumbers
 “earthy” potatoes
 “mushroom”
 “Sulfur” or cabbage like- cabbage family, broccoli
 “Onion or mustard like” onions
 “Fruity”-apple, pear
 Citrus- orange
 Creamy- peach, mango
 Caramel, nutty- pineapple
 “exotic” musky- mango
 Pine or mint-like- rosemary, mint
 Spicy, warm- cinnamon, cloves, vanilla (McGee, 2004)
o Sound: crunchy, crispy