Sensory Glossary
After-taste
It corresponds to the perception that remains in the mouth and throat after swallowing the product
Agueusia
Lack or loss of the ability to perceive taste
Analytical tests
Discriminative and descriptive tests conducted by trained
Anosmia
Lack of olfaction, or a loss of the ability to smell
Aroma
Organoleptic feature that can be perceived by the olfactory organ, by retronasal way during tasting
Descriptive tests
Evaluation of the importance of differences between various products
Discriminative tests
Evaluation consisting of determining very small differences between various products
Flavor
Combination of taste and aroma features
Hedonic
Relative to pleasant or unpleasant feature. Hedonic tests, aimed at measuring the pleasant or unpleasant features of a product (affective assessment) are conducted by human sensory panels.
Organoleptic
Qualifies the property of a product that can be perceived by human senses
Retro-nasal olfaction
Odorant perception that goes up to the nasal holes after swallowing the product. This effect contributes to the taste of products for a 80% part.
Sensory panel
Group of persons that evaluate products by means of sense organs. There exist 2 types of panels: consumer panel and expert panel.
Smell
Organoleptic feature perceived by olfactory organ when sniffing some volatile substances (molecular mass < 400)
Taste
Sensations perceived by gustative organs (taste buds) when stimulated by some soluble substances
Trigeminal sense
Corresponds to sensations perceived in the mouth or in the nose but not by taste buds or olfactive cells. These sensations gather tactile, thermal, painful and kinaesthesic sensations.
Application examples
Human olfaction / taste & instruments
Human taste & Electronic Nose / Tongue >>
Human smell & Electronic Nose >>