Sensory Evaluation

The nose contains olfactory receptors which pick up smells. These work alongside the taste buds to work out flavours.

Thousands of taste buds cover the surface of the human tongue. This allows the human tongue to identify salty, sweet, sour, savoury and bitter flavours.

Things like cooking methods, seasoning and the freshness and quality of ingrediants all affects how food tastes.

Texture matters. The majority of people with prefer: aldente pasta dishes, crisp pizza bases, and crisp and crunchy vegetables.

If food smells good, we're more likely to want to eat it. Cooking technique and seasoning choice will effect smell.

Attractive food is more appealing that unattractive food. E.g. colourful and beautifully presented roast looks more appealing than plain coloured mash.

Paired preference test:

A taster gets two similar foods to sample and indicates which one they prefer.

Hedonic rating test:

Tasters try various different foods and rate them on a scale.

Triangle test:

Tasters try three foods- two are the same and one is different- and then select the one they think is different from the three.

Triangle tests are considered slightly more reliable than A not A test as tasters in triangle tests are less likely to guess the right answer.

A not A test:

Tasters try a sample and then try two more samples and then pick which one they think is the same as the first sample.

Ranking tests:

Tasters taste food samples and then order them from lowest to highest for a characteristic, scores are then counted and ranked.

Rating tests:

Tasters taste food samples and use a scale to rate different characteristics.

Profiling test:

Tasters taste food samples and use a scale to rate characteristics. Those conducting the test work out an average for each characteristic and based on those averages they creat a food profile which can be represented visually.