Sensory analysis of natural table olives: Relationship between appearance of defect and gustatory-kinaesthetic sensation changes

Abstract In the present study, we evaluated sensory characteristics of table olives of the Italian double-aptitude olive cultivar ( Olea europaea L. cv. Itrana) processed as green ( Oliva Bianca di Itri ) and black ( Oliva di Gaeta ) table olives, according to the Method for the sensory analysis of table olives of International Olive Council. The sensory attributes evaluated were: a) negative sensations or defects (abnormal fermentations and other defects as butyric, putrid and zapateria, winey-vinegary, soapy, metallic, cooking effects, rancid, musty and earthy defects); b) gustatory sensations (salty, bitter, acid) and c) kinaesthetic sensations (hardness, fibrousness, crunchiness). Multivariate statistical analysis has been used to identify similarities and differences between defected and un-defected samples. We carried out the Principal Component Analysis on two data sets: the first data-set included all sensory parameters (data-set A), while the second data-set did not include abnormal fermentation and other defects (data-set B). The occurrence of negative sensations have a negative impact on gustative and kinaesthetic attributes. The samples classified as “Extra or Fancy” but with intensity of defect >1.0 are more similar to defected samples, also not considering the defects as discriminant parameters.