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Sweetness and bitterness can be regarded as mediators of vegetable preferences and intake, thus playing a prominent role in quality assessment. Sugars and saponins are known to cause sweet and bitter perception in asparagus. In the present investigation a trained, quantitative-descriptive sensory panel was used to assess various asparagus cultivars with known contents of sugars and saponins. Therefore, six asparagus cultivars, representing the range of cultivars used in commercial white asparagus production in Germany were selected. Material was harvested at two different dates and analysed for sugar and saponin contents. The contents of six individual saponins differed within cultivars and also between the harvest dates, whereas no differences of the sugar concentrations were found. Principal component analysis (PCA) allowed to identify the sources of sensory differences between samples, explaining 62 % of all variation: sweetness, bitterness and pungency. It could be shown, that only two of the investigated saponins were related to bitterness and sweetness perception.

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This study is focused on the synthesis and characterization of hydroxy-apo-10'-carotenal/quantum dot (QD) conjugates aiming at the in vivo visualization of β-ionone, a carotenoid-derived volatile compound known for its important contribution to the flavor and aroma of many fruits, vegetables, and plants. The synthesis of nanoparticles bound to plant volatile precursors was achieved via coupling reaction of the QD to C27-aldehyde which was prepared from α-ionone via 12 steps in 2.4% overall yield. The formation of the QD-conjugate was confirmed by measuring its fluorescence spectrum to observe the occurrence of fluorescence resonance energy transfer.

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