Consumer’s test on espresso coffee: detecting efficient physicochemical parameters, able to discriminate the coffee “body” sensation.

The coffee capsule is the main theme of the study together with one of the key descriptors of espresso coffee: body, which is a tactile attribute that involves and influences the entire aromatic sphere of coffee. For this reason, during the product development phase, great attention is paid to obtaining the desired body for each blend. The differences in intensity of this sensory attribute can be objectively detected and discriminated on the one hand, by panels of trained and expert judges, on the other, by analytical parameters such as ° Brix and % of extracts. Furthermore, correlations can be found between the objective evaluation of trained judges and experts with instrumental data. Up to date, however, there are only a few studies in the literature that explain whether the differences in body can be perceived by the final consumer and whether there is a correlation with these data. Therefore, one of the aims of this work was to investigate on such topic with the collaboration of Mérieux NutriSciences. Consequently, a consumer test was conducted on 389 Italian consumers, distributed over 4 cities (Milan, Padua, Prato, and Bari) which evaluated 6 different references of Lavazza espresso capsules through two tasting sessions. During the first session, consumers were called to evaluate the acceptance of specific items such as appearance, smell, flavour, and body; while during the second session, consumers evaluated the overall satisfaction, emotions and consumption habits of coffee capsules. The final questionnaire given to consumers was built based on a Repertory Grid Method (RGM) applied with 15 tasters, who throughout a face-to-face interview, answered questions related to the overall liking of coffee, the personal concept of body, and the emotions aroused by the beverage. Parallel to the consumer test, the instrumental analysis on °Brix and % of extracts were performed in triplicate for each of the 6 references. The collected data were processed through a series of statistical analysis in order to better understand the sensitivity of consumers in discriminating against products; to identify the presence of any possible preference cluster; to verify the existence of a correlation between socio-demographic characteristics and/or consumption habits with product’s acceptability and finally, to analyse the differences in body perception, overall satisfaction, and emotional profile. The results of the physicochemical analysis revealed a strong correlation of ° Brix and % of extracts with the body, thus corroborating the studies previously made by Ravaioli et al., 2022. Whereas the study conducted on consumers showed that they are able to discriminate for the consistency items investigated; that body is able to influence the overall satisfaction of coffee for 70% of the interviewees and can impact the emotions triggered by consumers. In particular, it has been noted that an intermediate degree of body can raise, a medium positive emotional profile, while for extreme body values, the drink is able to create strong emotions, both in a positive (intriguing and surprising) or negative way (disappointment).