LAUSR

BACKGROUND our taste perception builds on both chemical and physiological foundations, plays an important role in food flavor, including fruit, beer, wine and beverage. A reliable and unified sourness standard and sourness conversion method for researchers and food enterprises are necessary to obtain comparable conclusions and attractive food goods. RESULTS This study established an optimized organic acids sensory sourness analysis and sourness conversion method based on the sour sensory difference strength curves, which consisted of the absolute threshold value and sensory difference threshold values. Defining absolute threshold value of citric acid sourness as 1, sourness could be obtained by the curve. With a logarithmic curve form, the acid's sourness indexes (AI) were calculated as 1, 0.74, 0.77, 1.31, and 1.21 for the citric, malic, fumaric, lactic and tartaric acid samples, respectively. Consequently, each acid sourness and concentration could be obtained and converted. Single-acid and mixed-acids sourness comparison evaluation implied that the novel method was more accurate (91.7-100%) than the hydrogen ion concentration method. CONCLUSION The novel sourness determination and conversion equation would provide more practical sourness standard and calculation method references in food sensory areas, especially in the sour taste application. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.