Sensory Characteristics of Fu Brick Tea by Quantitative Descriptive Analysis and Construction of Flavor Wheel

Abstract:

To investigate the flavor sensory characteristics of Fu brick tea, a quantitative descriptive analysis (QDA) was used to study it. The flavor wheel of Fu brick tea was constructed with 20 categories for aroma and taste, comprising a total of 37 descriptors. Different intensities of quantitative reference samples were established for 16 typical descriptors, and the vocabulary for quantitatively describing the sensory characteristics of Fu brick tea was established. The main sensory characteristic descriptors were selected by M value and variance analysis combined with multivariate statistical analysis including six aroma descriptors, i.e., stale, woody, floral, sweet, smoky and fermented, and five taste descriptors, i.e., mellow and normal, bitter, astringent, sweet and sour. The sensory quantitative description of Fu brick tea using the selected descriptors can be used to summarize the basic sensory characteristics of Fu brick tea and effectively differentiate the differences of flavor sensory characteristics among them.