Development of food kansei model and its application for designing tastes and flavors of green tea beverage

Abstract

The Food Kansei Model has been developed to formulate the causal relationships between the analyzed characteristics and perceived quality of food products. It was applied to correlate the physicochemical properties with the food perception, preference and pleasantness quantitatively. The model was applied to the practical design of flavor- and taste-active components in green tea beverages. Instrumental analyses using gas chromatography and high performance liquid chromatography were carried out for test samples of green tea beverages. Sensory evaluation was also performed by three consumer groups belonging to different social categories. The perception of tastes and flavors was summarized in new sets of uncorrelated sensory factors by applying principal component analysis to sensory data. Preferences were indicated by regression coefficients estimated to correlate hedonic ratings with the sensory factors. The relationships among the green tea components and the sensory factors were analyzed by the use of an artificial neural network. The preferable intensities of sensory factors and the concentration ratio of the components were estimated for each consumer group. Relatively high levels of roasted and sweet flavor components were found to cause higher smoothness that was preferred by female students. In contrast, female and male office workers preferred the samples containing a greater amount of flowery flavor and total amino acid, which offered greater thickness and fragrance.