Development of a structured sensory honey analysis: application to artisanal Madrid honeys

In this work a methodology to evaluate the sensory properties of honeys has been developed. The sensory analysis was carried out by means of a quantitative descriptive analysis (QDA) method, based on several reference scales, for the coverage of the designed range for each descriptor. The peculiarity of this sensory analysis is that the reference scales have been constituted by common foodstuffs agreed upon by consensus of the panel. The main sensory attributes evaluated in the analyses were: adhesiveness, viscosity, bitterness, aroma, sweetness, acidity, color and granularity. Both the intensity and persistence of honey aromas have also been estimated, together with the classification of the identified aromatic attributes into different groups. The method was applied to 55 artisanal honeys from Madrid (Spain) with the following results: (i) the developed sensory profile sheet allowed a satisfactory description of Madrid honeys; (ii) correlations between sensory attributes of three broad groups of Madrid honeys were obtained and (iii) aroma persistence, sweetness, bitterness, color and granularity appeared as the main sensorial characteristics of honey with discrimination power between floral and honeydew honeys.