Flavour of natural and roasted Turkish hazelnut varieties (Corylus avellana L.) by descriptive sensory analysis, electronic nose and chemometrics

Abstract

A total of eighteen natural and roasted hazelnut varieties (amongst which only Tombul variety is classified as prime quality), grown in the Giresun province of Turkey, were compared for their differences in descriptive sensory analysis (DSA), electronic nose (e-nose) data and chemometrics. Differences in some descriptive of DSA between natural and roasted hazelnuts as well as within the varieties were observed. Although Tombul hazelnut was selected as one of the best varieties in terms of flavour attributes and received the highest intensities in general, no significant differences (P>0.05) existed among hazelnut varieties except in certain flavour attributes ('after taste' and 'nutty'). DSA and e-nose data of natural and roasted hazelnuts were also evaluated for discrimination using principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis. Results of PCA using e-nose data showed that extracted principal components explained 99.7% and 99.8% of the total variance of the data for natural and roasted hazelnut varieties, respectively. Both DSA and e-nose can be used for discrimination of natural and roasted hazelnuts. © 2011 The Authors. International Journal of Food Science and Technology © 2011 Institute of Food Science and Technology.