Identifying the sensory profiles of naturally fermented table olives and their application to industrially processed cultivars

Abstract

The study examines the sensory profile of industrially processed, naturally fermented table olives. A detailed set of descriptors crunchiness, hardness, bitter, fibrousness, saltiness, chewiness, sourness, green fruit, ripe fruit, flesh/stone separation, piquant, and musty was developed for green and turning colour Manzanilla and Gordal products, using Quantitative Descriptive Analysis (QDA). Green Gordal (GG) was characterised by higher than average chewiness (scores 7.0–7.1), crunchiness (7.5–8.2), hardness (scores 7.7–8.0) and fibrousness (6.2–6.4). In contrast, turning colour Gordal was lower than average in bitter (2.9–3.4), crunchiness (4.1–4.9), hardness (4.5–5.1) and fibrousness (4.4–4.7). Initially, the green Manzanilla was characterised by higher than average levels of bitter (6.5–7.1), crunchiness (7.2–7.4), hardness (6.9–7.0), and saltiness (3.2–3.3). However, they diminished to about average levels by the end of the fermentation process. The turning colour Manzanilla was initially associated with elevated bitter (5.6–5.9) and lower-than-average final crunchiness (4.6–4.9), hardness (5.1–5.7) and fibrousness (4.5-4.6). However, the final product resulting from this treatment had relatively high significant values for acetic/vinegar (3.5), astringent (3.5), musty (2.0), piquant (2.5), rancid (1.8) and ripe fruit flavour (3.3). The Hotelling T2 test, PCA, and the correlation circle reinforced the specific sensory profile associated with cultivars and maturation stages. Minimal changes were observed over time. PLS-R revealed associations between physicochemical characteristics and sensory profiles such as bitter with phenol content (standardised coefficient; 0.881) and texture (0.755) or ripe fruit with bitter index (0.475), among others.