Sensory characterisation of black ripe table olives from Spanish Manzanilla and Hojiblanca cultivars.

A lexicon from the literature has been used for the characterisation of black ripe table olives from Spanish Manzanilla and Hojiblanca cultivars by Quantitative Descriptive Analysis (QDA). After confirming the acceptable reproducibility and repeatability of the panel, the descriptors that received the widest range of scores and significantly contributed to sample discrimination were: skin green, flesh green, skin sheen, flesh red, fibrousness, firmness, skin red, moisture release, fishy smell/ocean and flesh yellow. The effects of cultivar, growing area and storage period on the sensory profiles were relevant, as showed by spider graphs and multivariate methods. The map of variables, using bootstrapping techniques, associated descriptors like fibrousness, firmness, chewiness, skin red, flesh red, and skin sheen to PC1, which can then be related to texture, while PC2 was linked to skin green and astringency (related to phenols) or vinegar and fishy smell/ocean (possibly connected to cultivars). Centring data by panelist had a strong influence on the segregation of samples but increasing the number of panelists had a reduced additional effect. The diverse sensory profiles of samples were also summarised by biclustering.

Data on sensory profile of green Spanish-style table olives studied by Quantitative Descriptive Analysis.

This article contains processed data related to the research published in "Sensory profile of green Spanish-style table olives according to cultivar and origin" [1]. It provides information on the physicochemical characteristics of the analysed samples and the results of the multivariate analysis used in the above-commented paper. Particularly, it includes: i) the values of pH, titratable acidity, combined acidity, and NaCl for batches according to samples, ii) the scores given to each descriptor by the panelists according to samples, iii) the histogram of the overall scores for descriptor, iv) the boxplot of descriptors over samples, v) the effect of samples and contribution of panelists to the interaction sample∙panelist, vi) correlation between the panelists and the whole panel, vii) panelist performance, viii) panel repeatability, ix) sensory profile of samples (spider graph), x) adjusted means for descriptor according to samples, xi) prevalence of descriptors on samples, xii) product effect as assessed by p-value.

Sensory profile of green Spanish-style table olives according to cultivar and origin.

This work studies the influence of cultivar and farming area on the sensory profile of green Spanish-style table olives, using Quantitative Descriptive Analysis. The lexicon developed was subsequently applied to samples of Gordal (G), Manzanilla (M), and Hojiblanca (H) from different origins: Arahal (A), Utrera (U), Alameda (Al), Estepa (E), Casariche (C), Alcalá de Guadaira (AG), Posadas (P), and Almendralejo (Am). The analysis of the data by ANOVA, considering the effect of the sample as fixed and those of the panelists and the sessions as random, showed good repeatability (no significant effect of the session). Bitter, salty, astringent, acid, alcohol and lupin descriptors had significant discriminating power. The samples were characterised by the following sensory attributes: HC, pungent and winery/wine; MP, salty and lupin; GA, acid and lactic acid; HAl, astringent and acetic/vinegar; and MAm, bitter and musty. The multivariate analysis combined with bootstrapping techniques offered a multidimensional view of repeatability, relationships among descriptors, and characterisation and segregation of products. The results then pointed to sensible differences among the sensory profiles of the samples due to cultivar and origin.

Volatile profiles of green Spanish-style table olives: Application of compositional data analysis for the segregation of their cultivars and production areas.

The work presents the application of compositional data methodology to analytical results, taking as an example the study of the volatile profiles of green Spanish-style table olives according to cultivars and production areas. For this purpose, the volatile compounds (analysed by GC-MS and expressed as percentages of the total area) were considered as a compositional data set in the Simplex space and, as a result, analysed by their specific new statistical tools. Application of compositional exploratory tools (variation array, tertiary graphs, biplots, or coda-dendrogram) allowed differentiating cultivars and production areas based on their volatile profiles. Also, the application of Cluster and Principal Component analysis to the ilr transformed values (coordinates), following the new methodology, led to more realistic results than the formally incorrect implementation of the standard multivariate analysis (developed for data from the Euclidean space) to percentages (data in the Simplex). Therefore, the work presents a novel consideration of the volatile profiles of table olives as compositional data and shows their proper analysis by statistical tools specifically developed for them.