Eric Teillet 1, 2; Christine Urbano 2; Sylvie Cordelle 2; Pascal Schlich 3
1 Lyonnaise des Eaux, France
2 CNRS, UMR des Sciences du Goût, CNRS-UB-INRA, France
3 INRA, UMR des Sciences du Goût, CNRS-UB-INRA, France
Describing the taste of water is a challenge since drinking water is supposed to have almost no taste. But, in a project aiming at understanding consumer behavior towards drinking water, different classical sensory methodologies have been applied in order to assess sensory features of water (sensory profile, free sorting task, Napping®…). Nevertheless, these methodologies present some drawbacks. Therefore, a new methodology based on the comparison of water samples named “Polarized Sensory Positioning” (PSP) has been developed enabling us to easily define the sensory characteristics of water without presenting too many samples. It consists for the subjects involved in the experiment to assess the extent to which the products to be analyzed are similar to three specific products. These three products which are referred to as sensory poles stand as prototypes in water as highlighted in previous studies. The PSP method of assessment provides sensory data that can be analyzed with various statistical methods (PCA, Statis, MDS unfolding…).
Keywords:
Polarized Sensory Positioning, drinking water, sensory methodologies
