Preference direction study of Job’s-tears ice cream

Abstract

Job's-tears (Coix lachryma-jobi L.) is a kind of cereal commonly used in Asia as food and medicine, but it is still not widely consumed in Thailand. Four prototype products of Job’s-tears ice cream were developed by varying 2 levels of glucose syrup (16 and 32% of Job's-tears used) and coconut milk (50 and 100 % of Job's-tears used). Their sensory attribute profiles were evaluated by 3 groups of 10 selected panelists using Ratio profile test (RPT), and their acceptances, hedonic scores, were evaluated by 100 consumers. Results showed that there were significant effects of coconut milk quantity on several attributes, such as appearance (whiteness), texture (hardness, smoothness), and flavour (coconut milk aroma, sweetness, saltiness), but the effect of glucose syrup quantity was significant on hardness only. Acceptance data were analyzed by cluster analysis to find out the difference of preference directions and 3 clusters (n1 = 39, n2 = 25, n3 = 36) were found. The first cluster preferred Job's tears ice cream containing high glucose syrup and low coconut milk, whilst the second preferred high level of only one of these two ingredients, and the third preferred high level of both ingredients. External preference maps were created from RPT and acceptance data to express the preference direction of each cluster.

Keywords

• Job's-tears
• ice cream
• preference direction
• ratio profile test
• external preference map