Sensory Lexicon Construction and Quantitative Descriptive Analysis of Jiang-Flavor Baijiu

Jiang-flavor Baijiu (JFB) is one of the most complex and representative types of traditional Chinese liquor, known for its unique flavor, which is popular among Chinese consumers. Previous studies primarily focused on detecting and identifying volatile compounds but lacked comprehensive descriptions and precise differentiation of their sensory qualities. To explore the sensory characteristics of JFB, this study collected widely recognized sensory descriptors from literature, standards, free descriptive questionnaires, and Pivot Profile experiments, which were then textually analyzed and merged to yield 88 sensory descriptors. M-value and multivariate statistical methods were then used to narrow these down to 35 sensory descriptors, for which corresponding definitions and physical references were established, forming a sensory lexicon for JFB. A quantitative descriptive analysis (QDA) was performed on JFB samples using the sensory lexicon. To ensure the reliability of the analysis, the panel's performance was also evaluated. Hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), radar plots, and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) demonstrated that the established sensory lexicon accurately reflects the sensory profile of JFB and can be used to differentiate the sensory characteristics of samples from different price ranges or regions. This study opens new avenues for the standardization of quantitative descriptive analysis for JFB and provides a case study for constructing sensory lexicons for other types of Baijiu in China.