Sufu (fermented soybean curd) is a cheese‐like product that is widely consumed in Asian countries. One of the subtypes is plain sufu, a traditional fermented food whose sensory attributes remain poorly characterized. In this study, we developed a lexicon for describing its sensory characteristics. Trained panelists evaluated the sensory profiles of 12 commercially available products manufactured in 3 locations. Sensory data were analyzed using one‐way analysis of variance and principal component analysis, and 8 aroma, 7 texture, 2 taste, and 5 flavor attributes were identified and defined. After further lexicon refinement, the aroma attributes salty, moldy, alcohol‐like, and meaty were identified to clearly differentiate fully aged samples from each other. The texture and flavor attributes that differentiate sufu were cohesiveness and sesame oil‐like, respectively.
Practical Applications
The sufu lexicon helps product developers, researchers, and technologists understand the characteristics of plain sufu and those positive attributes when developing new, similar products and investigating quality‐control and shelf‐life topics. Because all mature plain sufus examined here presented similar sensory profiles derived from their major attributes, future studies could focus on distinct fermentation periods used to optimize products by employing the available definitions and references. Moreover, the developed lexicon can serve as a tool for correlating descriptive data to consumer preferences and to facilitating an understanding of the attributes that drive consumers’ acceptance.
Red sufu is a subtype of fermented soybean curd products that is red in color. There is little information available regarding the sensory properties of red sufu products. Therefore, the objectives of this investigation were to develop and validate a lexicon for profiling sensory properties of red sufu products. In this study, 10 qualified panelists were selected to develop a list of descriptors using 8 randomly selected commercial red sufus available from local market. M% value and principal component analysis (PCA) were used to reduce the number of descriptors from the initial 117 terms to the final 15 descriptors. Furthermore, 12 red sufu samples were selected for validation of the red sufu lexicon. Both PCA and agglomerative hierarchical cluster analysis validated that the newly developed lexicon could discriminate among red sufu samples.
Practical applicationsThe lexicon developed in this study for red sufus will be useful for researchers and manufacturers to identify and describe similarities and differences of different commercial red sufus to help in their red sufu product development. Furthermore, it can be used to correlate with the instrumental data to strengthen the flavor quality control in the red sufu products.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.