This work aimed to adapt the EsSense Profile® emotions list to the discrimination of
herbal infusions, aiming to evaluate the effect of harvesting conditions on the emotional profile.
A panel of 100 consumers evaluated eight organic infusions: lemon verbena, peppermint, lemon
thyme, lemongrass, chamomile, lemon balm, globe amaranth and tutsan, using a check-all-that-apply
(CATA) ballot with the original EsSense Profile®. A set of criteria was applied to get a discriminant
list. First, the terms with low discriminant power and with a frequency mention below 35% were
removed. Two focus groups were also performed to evaluate the applicability of the questionnaire.
The content analysis of focus groups suggests the removal of the terms good and pleasant, recognized
as sensory attributes. Six additional terms were removed, considered to be too similar to other
existing emotion terms. Changes in the questionnaire, resulting in a list of 24 emotion terms for
the evaluation of selected herbal infusions, were able to discriminate beyond overall liking. When
comparing finer differences between plants harvested under different conditions, differences were
identified for lemon verbena infusions, yielding the mechanical cut of plant tips as the one leading to
a more appealing evoked emotions profile.Author C. Rocha acknowledges Industry Doctoral grant No. SFRH/BDE/100483/2014, funded by FCT, Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). Authors Rocha, Cunha and Moura acknowledge financial support from the national funds by FCT, under projects UIDB/05748/2020 and UIDP/05748/2020 with funding from FCT/MCTES through national funds. This research was funded through project “Infusão Premium— Criação de lotes de plantas aromáticas premium com propriedades sensoriais e funcionais validadas com elevada aceitação pelo consumidor”, financed by ANI, through Sistemas de Incentivos à Investigação e Desenvolvimento Tecnológico do QREN; and also through project “4C’s—Consumer Cross-Cultural Context”, funded by COMPETE2020, Portugal2020, Norte2020 and FEDER-European Regional Development Funds.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
