E. Kostyra, N. Baryłko-Pikielna, U. Dąbrowska, G. Wasiak-Zys

Warsaw University of Life Sciences (WULS),
Department of Functional Food and Commodity, Poland


Application of hot spices as chili pepper to various foods is of interest from both, sensory and nutritional/health-related point of view. In sensory dimension burn or hot note in the food product or culinary dish makes it more attractive for many consumers  - under the condition that it is well matched with the food matrix, qualitatively and quantitatively. It rises the question of the measurement not time-course of pungency intensity alone, but also its affect on leading flavour attributes of the product (attributes deciding about its identity) over time of their common perception. The use of T-I procedure (one-by-one attribute measurement) has several inconveniencies and limitations, mainly related to peculiar behaviour of chemesthetic sensations (very long duration, strong sensitization/desentisation effect). Therefore new alternative methodological approach has been proposed.

The method provisionally named Time Related Profiling (TRP) is a hybride of simplified descriptive and T-I procedure in which pungency and 3-4 flavour attributes are  being measured simultaneously at pre-determined time intervals. In the performed study above procedure was applied to determine time-related changes in pungency and three flavour attributes in six model foods (soups and sauces prepared in controlled laboratory condition) to which chili powder was added in rising amount. The experiments were performed by 6-members sensory panel, well trained and experienced in various sensory methods (including Time-Intensity) in two replicates.

The results have shown that TRP procedure offers possibility of simultaneous measurement of changes in pungency and leading flavour attributes and their ratio to each other in consecutive time intervals of various level of added chili powder. The advantages of proposed method are:

• tasting procedure mimics more closely “real eating” situation;
• it delivers additional important information (pungency/flavour ratio, interaction effect);
• difficulties related to sensitization/desentisation effects are overcame;
• time of performing the analysis is shortened remarkably.