The aim of this research is the evaluation of the sensory attributes of most-favorable honey types to select honey with the best sensorial overall and the highest consumer acceptance. The on-line questionnaire revealed that the group of 515 Polish citizens mostly consumed multiflorous (38.4% of respondents), linden (30.2%), and buckwheat (11.4%) honey. The material was multiflorous, linden and buckwheat honey, in total nine samples, purchased from Polish beekeepers. In the next step, the sensory panel determined sweet and honey-like aromas as the characteristic descriptors. Acid, pungent, and bitter tastes appeared in the evaluation; however, they did not negatively affect the overall assessment. Honey differed significantly in density, from liquid multiflorous and linden honey to very thick buckwheat honey. Then, the highest overall note was achieved for one representative of each honey type: multiflorous-1 (8.3 au.), linden-2 (8.8 au.), and buckwheat-1 (7.9 au.). Furthermore, from 102 consumers, the biggest group noted their high acceptance for linden, second for buckwheat honey.The results obtained suggested that linden and buckwheat honey can be successfully used in the novel food development based on these honey types.
Practical ApplicationsThe findings of this study can be applied by honey producers, suppliers, and customers to differentiated and determine type of honeys according to their characteristic's sensorial attributes. Moreover, it could help to manufacture a new innovative product based on different honey types. In this case sensory is proposed as an additional but also useful tool that can prove pollen domination in honey samples and eliminate by easy way adulteration of honeys.
| INTRODUCTIONHoney is a natural product produced by bees from flowers' pollen. From a sensory point of view, honey has a very pleasant aroma and sweet taste (Aparna & Rajalakshmi, 2009). It has already been proved that honeys of different botanical origins will not have the same sensory features. Light-colored honeys (acacia, linden, etc.) have a milder flavor than the dark ones (buckwheat, chestnut, or heather). Tahir et al. (2016) found a relationship between sensory profiles of honeys of various botanical origin and their aroma compounds composition. Importantly, their research showed that "not all the sensory attributes could be explained by the measured aroma compounds." In turn, Stolzenbach, Byrne and Bredie (2011) presented the "sensory local uniqueness" of honey and declared that pollen characterization is correlated with sensory properties for different honey types. Moreover, Siegmund, Urdl,Jurek and Leitner, (2017) noted that honeys' botanical and geographical origin can majorly influence the quality attributes including flavor, odor, texture, and color of honey and as such significantly determines