Flavor lexicon development (in English and Chinese) and descriptive analysis of Sichuan pepper

Abstract

A lexicon in English and Chinese was developed to describe the aroma and flavor profiles of sensory characteristics of Zanthoxylum bungeanum, also known as Sichuan pepper 花椒 or Chinese prickly ash. A trained, experienced descriptive analysis panel was used to determine the flavor characteristics for Sichuan Pepper. A total of 32 sensory attributes were detected, which included 15 attributes for aroma and 17 attributes for flavor. The aroma profile included peppery, green, citrus, pungent, fennel anise, brothy, floral/perfumy, piney, fruity, sweet aromatics, petroleum‐like, chive, earthy, brown, and menthol. The flavor profile included peppery, green, citrus, pungent, minty, floral, piney, fruity, petroleum‐like, earthy, cardboard, green‐viney, umami, bitter, astringent, tingle, and numbing. The lexicon was validated and demonstrated through 16 different Sichuan pepper samples, including subspecies, locations, and brands. Green Sichuan peppers were more highly flavored and more similar to each other than red peppers suggesting that older plants producing red peppers produce milder and slightly more differentiated samples. Practical Applications Sichuan pepper is a major flavor ingredient in some types of Asian cooking. A lexicon is needed to identify the effects of different subspecies and processing technologies for Sichuan pepper in order to understand differences in aroma and flavor among these “peppers.” The developed lexicon has been shown to differentiate among commercial samples.

A sensory lexicon to characterize the quality of fresh and preserved peppers

“…Basic tastes such as sweetness, sourness, and bitterness have been commonly evaluated across different types of peppers in previous studies (Eggink, 2013;Jimenez-Garcia et al, 2018;Luning et al, 1994b;Martinez et al, 2021;Patel et al, 2016). Also, floral, sweet aromatics, woody, bitter, umami, earthy, fruity, green, astringency, and pungency attributes coincided with the lexicon developed for Sichuan peppers (Yang et al, 2021), suggesting their broad usefulness across pepper types. While numbing/anesthetic was a chemesthetic character of Sichuan peppers, such an attribute was not perceived in the current study.…”

“…Thus, the direct adaptation to other projects is limited. More recently, Yang et al (2021) developed a lexicon to characterize the flavor of Sichuan pepper (Zanthoxylum spp. ), which is extensively used in Chinese cuisine.…”

Sensory descriptors for three edible Chilean seaweeds and their relations to umami components and instrumental texture

“…Developing a sensory terminology is particularly relevant for novel and unfamiliar foods to better comprehend the sensory traits that may preclude or limit their consumption and how to overcome them (Yang and Lee 2019 ). Sensory quality is a major factor behind neophobia or the reluctance to eat new foods (Tan et al 2017 ; Tuorila and Hartmann 2019 ; Yang et al 2020 ).…”

“…Sharma et al ( 2020 ) developed a lexicon for potato varieties with five expert panelists, while Sato et al ( 2017 ) relied on untrained students to define sensory properties of the same tuber. Yang et al ( 2020 ) used only four expert panelists to conceive a bilingual flavor lexicon for Sichuan pepper, but Galán-Soldevilla et al ( 2005 ) trained eight subjects to develop a sensory vocabulary for the odor and flavor characteristics of floral honeys from Spain. Wu et al ( 2017 ) in their panel for quinoa, used four habitual consumers and five others that had rarely consumed the food.…”