title: Sensory characterisation enabled the first classification of dessert bananas.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Knowledge of the sensory diversity of a wide range of dessert bananas would be helpful in breeding programmes and so diversify the banana market. Descriptive sensory profiling was thus used to assess 13 cultivated bananas and four new triploid hybrids at an eating stage.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A specific vocabulary was defined to describe the sensory traits of dessert bananas. The 17 cultivars assessed were ranked in five sensory clusters, which differed mainly in the intensity of sourness and sweetness. The first cluster, which contained the standard banana (Cavendish), received the lowest sourness and the highest sweetness and banana flavour scores. The second cluster was the sourest and firmest and had the highest chemical flavour score. The third cluster was characterised by the highest melting score, the fourth by the highest mealiness, astringency, grassy odour and flavour scores and the fifth by a balance between sourness and sweetness and the highest heterogeneous texture score. Firmness and sourness were correlated with rheological pulp firmness and titratable acidity respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results led to the identification of relevant attributes that grouped the sensory diversity of dessert banana into five clusters. Combined with hedonic data, these results should help breeders to select banana hybrids.
authors.affiliation: CIRAD, UMR QUALISUD, PRAM, BP 214, F-97285 Lamentin Cedex 2, Martinique, France. bugaud@cirad.fr
authors.forename: Christophe
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Bugaud
authors.forename: Emeline
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Deverge
authors.forename: Marie-Odette
authors.initials: MO
authors.lastname: Daribo
authors.forename: Fabienne
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ribeyre
authors.forename: Bernard
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Fils-Lycaon
authors.forename: Didier
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mbéguié-A-Mbéguié
mesh_terms: D055598:Chemical Phenomena; D005638:Fruit / Q000145:classification*; D006244:Hardness; D006801:Humans; D006863:Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; D008395:Martinique; D028521:Musa / Q000145:classification*; D012677:Sensation; D012903:Smell; D013045:Species Specificity; D013649:Taste; D009626:Terminology as Topic