Categorization and Sensory Profiling of Functional Beverages

The significant influx of a wide variety of commercially-available functional beverages has resulted in a beverage segment that is not clearly defined or understood. The rapid increase in functional beverages has also resulted in the lack of understanding of the sensory, chemical, and physical effects of functional ingredients in these products. Therefore, the central hypothesis of this research was that there are distinct functional beverage categories and that functional ingredients incorporated into beverage formulations affect the sensory properties of beverages. The objectives were to: (1) categorize commercially-available functional beverages using three different methods (ingredient inventory, flow behavior comparison, and a two-step sensory sorting), (2) develop and validate the two-step sensory sorting method to categorize large number of samples, (3) determine and describe the effects of functional ingredients (caffeine, ginseng, and taurine) on the sensory characteristics of model energy drink solutions, and (4) identify effective treatments and levels of bitterness minimizers to reduce the bitterness of ginseng in water base and model energy drink base solutions. Of the three categorization methods, the two-step sensory sorting produced the most distinctive and defined categories. The seven functional beverage categories generated were: Enhanced Waters, Energy Drinks, Fruit Smoothies, Nutritional Drinks, Sports Drinks, Teas, and Yogurt Smoothies. The research suggests that the two-step sorting is a valid and reproducible method to categorize a large number (∼50) of functional beverages. Since Energy Drinks was one of the most distinct categories generated in the categorization research, it was the main focus in the functional ingredients study. To determine the key sensory attributes of model energy drink solutions containing 27 combinations (3x3x3 factorial design) of the three functional ingredients at three concentrations (low, medium, high), a descriptive analysis (DA) was conducted. The results from the DA research suggest that ginseng predominantly contributes to the bitter attributes. Bitterness minimizers were investigated, and it was found that cyclodextrins are effective in reducing the bitter taste of ginseng in solution. Taste is a key component in the acceptability of food products and the more known about the inclusion of ingredients into a food matrix, the better we can develop successful products.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Food Science and Human Nutrition

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2014

Author dc:creator

• Tamamoto, Lauren Chiemi

Contributors dc:contributor

• Cadwallader, Keith R.
• Lee, Soo-Yeun

• Agriculture, Food Science and Technology

Identifier

(UMI)AAI3395512

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/72220