Food Quality and Preference 21 (2010) 967–976

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Food Quality and Preference

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/foodqual

Sensory methodologies and the taste of water

Eric Teillet a,c,*, Pascal Schlich b, Christine Urbano a, Sylvie Cordelle a, Elisabeth Guichard d
a
CNRS, UMR 5171, Centre Européen des Sciences du Goût, CNRS-UB-INRA, France
b
INRA, UMR 5171, Centre Européen des Sciences du Goût, CNRS-UB-INRA, France
c
Lyonnaise des Eaux, France
d
INRA, UMR 1129, FLAVIC, INRA-ENESAD-UB, France

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Describing the taste of water is a challenge since drinking water is supposed to have almost no taste. In
Received 23 August 2009 this study, different classical sensory methodologies have been applied in order to assess sensory char-
Received in revised form 29 April 2010 acteristics of water and have been compared: sensory profiling, Temporal Dominance of Sensations
Accepted 29 April 2010
and free sorting task. These methodologies present drawbacks: sensory profile and TDS do not provide
Available online 7 May 2010
an effective discrimination of the taste of water and the free sorting task is efficient but does not enable
data aggregation. A new methodology based on comparison with a set of references and named ‘‘Polar-
Keywords:
ized Sensory Positioning” (PSP) has been developed enabling to easily define the sensory characteristics
Polarized Sensory Positioning
Drinking water
of water without presenting too many samples. Finally, this method provides a new type of sensory data
Sensory analysis requesting dedicated data analysis.
Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction odologies have been then adapted to water samples by Krasner,

Objectively determining the taste of water is not an easy task,
since drinking water by definition is supposed to have no particu-
lar taste. Indeed, the World Health Organization (WHO) has issued
recommendations to define criteria of comfort and pleasure (water
pleasant to drink, clear and with a balanced mineral content).
These recommendations are the basis used by the European Union
to prepare directives (JOCE, 1998) to define drinking water as lack-
ing any particular taste.
It is nevertheless clear that beside ‘‘off-flavors” produced by
pollution episodes, a variety of tastes can be detected in tap and
bottled waters from various origins. Early, Bruvold and Pangborn
(1966) and Bruvold and Ongerth (1969) showed that the taste
and the acceptance of water is linked to the total amount of min-
erals dissolved, which varies among bottled and tap waters. More-
over, Bruvold and Gaffey (1969) showed that this total amount of
minerals is a good predictor of the perceived taste and quality of
water.
Many studies have focused on off-flavors of water due to pollu-
tion episodes. However the taste of waters that are ‘‘free of off-fla-
vors” has been the subject of only few publications. Sensory
analysis of water is most often done by semi-quantitative assess-
ment with a methodology derived from the Quantitative Descrip-
tive AnalysisÒ (Stone, Sidel, Oliver, Woolsey, & Singleton, 1974)
and Quantitative Flavor Profiling (Stampanoni, 1993). These meth-
* Corresponding author at: CNRS, UMR 5171, Centre Européen des Sciences du
Goût, CNRS-UB-INRA, France. Tel.: +33 169935112; fax: +33 169935174.
E-mail address: eric.teillet@agroparistech.fr (E. Teillet).
McGuire, and Ferguson (1985) and Suffet et al. (1988) in a standard
method (AWWA, 1993). This methodology uses the ‘‘drinking
waters taste and odor wheel” (see for example Suffet, Khiari, & Bru-
chet, 1999) which is a thorough list of sensory descriptors encoun-
tered in the taste of water. Despite efficient in identifying the off-
flavors of waters due to pollution episodes, the high number of
descriptors and their nature (mostly odors) make this method less
adapted to the determination of the taste of waters free of off-
flavors.
In a project aiming at understanding preference and behavior
towards drinking water, it was necessary to first understand the
sensory space of drinking water. In this context, several ‘‘classical”
sensory methodologies have been tested: sensory profile, Temporal
Dominance of Sensations (TDS) and free sorting tasks were pro-
cessed to characterize water samples from a sensory point of view.
First of all, classical sensory profiles have been conducted,
including descriptor generation and training of panelists. The sen-
sory profile is certainly the most popular methodology used to de-
scribe products and was a natural method to discover the sensory
space of drinking water.
Then, the Temporal Dominance of Sensations (see Labbe, Sch-
lich, Pineau, Gilbert, & Martin, 2009; Pineau et al., 2009) was ap-
plied. TDS is a dynamic method enabling to describe the taste of
water all along the tasting and consists in scoring the dominant
sensation repeatedly, until sensations end.
Finally, a free sorting task has been conducted with naïve con-
sumers. The sorting procedure has been successfully used to obtain
product maps (Faye et al., 2004; Giboreau, Navarro, Faye, & Dumor-
tier, 2001; Lawless, Sheng, & Knoops, 1995; Popper & Heymann,

0950-3293/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.foodqual.2010.04.012
968 E. Teillet et al. / Food Quality and Preference 21 (2010) 967–976

1996) on various product spaces (food, beverages, textiles. . .). It Table 1

was recently considered as an alternative to Quantitative Descrip- List of the waters with their total mineralization by experiment.

tive Analysis for external preference mapping (Faye et al., 2006). Waters Total minerals Profile 1 Profile 2 TDS Sorting PSP
The free sorting task simply consists in grouping the samples (mg/L)
according to their sensory similarities. Falahee and MacRae Mont Roucous 19 X X X X
(1995) already demonstrated the efficiency of free sorting tasks ap- Epinal 59 X X
plied to the taste of water. Thann 60 X X X
Champeau 80 X
During the study, each of these methods showed drawbacks Guerlesquin 93 X
which prevent them to be used routinely. Finally, a methodology Volvic 121 X X X X
was developed in order to rapidly reveal the sensory characteris- Aquarel 152 X
tics of water, without the need for a large number of samples. This Bellegarde 167 X
Orleans 192 X X
method is named ‘‘Polarized Sensory Positioning” and is simply
Cristaline 195 X
based on the comparison of samples to water standards (the poles). Valvert 206 X X
PSP has also been developed to enable the accumulation of data Gennevilliers 225 X
across multiple studies. Vigneux 249 X
Since the water samples differ across studies which have been Dijon 290 X X X
Evian 326 X X X X
conducted successively and independently over two years, some
Evian with chlorine 326 X
caution is needed when comparing the substantive results across Thonon 329 X X X X
methods. But with this caveat in mind, comparisons and conclu- Auxerre 331 X
sions regarding the pros and cons of each methodology can still Yutz 376 X X X
Flins 460 X
be drawn. Methodologies have been compared on the basis of var-
Soissons 504 X X
ious criteria: ease of use, discrimination, interpretability, ability to Carola 668 X X
‘‘aggregate” data from several studies, ability to include verbal and Wattwiller 734 X X
hedonic assessments. Vittel 845 X X
Finally the objectives of the paper are: (1) To evaluate and com- St Amand 894 X X
Taillefine 1117 X X
pare the contribution of classical methodologies in understanding
Vauban 1244 X X X
the basics of the taste of water, and (2) To propose a new sensory Contrex 2039 X X X X
methodology well suited to the determination of the taste of water. Courmayeur 2305 X
Hepar 2664 X X X

Waters are sorted according to their mineralization and cities of tap waters are
2. Material and methods
indicated in bold type. Profile 1 refers to the sensory profile of bottled waters and
profile 2 refers to the sensory profile of tap waters.
2.1. Products

As far as possible, the waters were chosen to span the full range
of the total amount of minerals found in drinking waters in France. Table 2
Bottled waters were chosen on the same criteria from the most List of the descriptors used in experiments.

popular brands available on the French market. Tap waters were Descriptors Profile 1 Profile 2 TDS Sorting
collected from various cities of France, supplied by Lyonnaise des Sour X X X X
Eaux. The same waters were not tasted with all methodologies, Bitter X X X X
as it would have been done in a strict comparison study. But the Hard water X X
evolution of the project and the fact that tap waters are not stable Musty X X
Metallic X X X X
over time explain that the product data set is not the same for each
Metallic aftertaste X X
method. Salty X X X X
Waters were all transported into plastic bottles from a unique Cool X X X X
batch. Before tasting, tap waters were passively de-chlorinated Long aftertaste X X
by storage in a fridge for one week. The list of all the waters tasted Astringent X X X X
Tickles the throat X X X
sorted by their total mineralization is given in Table 1. Dries the mouth X X X X
For the profile of tap waters (profile 2), as French legislation rec- Minerals X
ommends a maximum of 800 mg/L and as waters between 500 and Chlorine X
800 mg/L are uncommon, the most mineralized water was only Tasteless X
Pharmacy X
504 mg/L.
Sweet X
A sample ‘‘Evian with chlorine” has been added to the products ‘‘Bottled water” X
in order to test the efficiency of PSP methodology in a space includ-
ing a sample with an off-flavor (see Section 3.2). Evian was thus
served with 0.2 mg/L of free chlorine. explicitly defined in a sensory point of view with a consensus be-
tween panelists. It was not the case in the sorting task performed
2.2. Descriptors by consumers who interpret personally the descriptors.

Profile, TDS and sorting task have been processed with a list of
descriptors. These descriptors have been generated at the begin-
ning of the profile sessions and are listed in Table 2. PSP was not
performed with descriptive attributes. This point is discussed in
part IV.
Profile and TDS have been performed with trained panelist, so
that descriptors have been selected on discrimination criteria and
2.3. Panelists and protocols
2.3.1. Sensory profile
The sensory profile of bottled waters (16 products, profile 1)
and de-chlorinated tap waters (13 products, profile 2) have been
processed in 2 different steps. After selection of the panelists, each
step included vocabulary generation and training of a panel.
 E. Teillet et al. / Food Quality and Preference 21 (2010) 967–976
For the profile of bottled waters, 16 subjects have been selected
on the basis of their ability in identifying and ranking the intensity
of tastes and mouth feelings. Then, subjects were asked to generate
descriptors and were trained to score them on continuous scales
for 12 sessions. Nine descriptors have been defined and selected
for the measurements. Finally, the 16 subjects scored 9 descriptors
for 16 bottled waters in triplicate.
The procedure has then been repeated with tap waters. Fifteen
trained subjects (7 of them had participated in the first profile)
scored 11 descriptors for 13 tap waters in duplicate.
2.3.2. Temporal dominance of sensations
The temporal dimension of the taste of water was studied using
the TDS method where each judge scored over the course of time
the intensity of the descriptor perceived as dominant. TDS has been
processed on bottled waters by the same trained panel which per-
formed sensory profile 2. In TDS, all the attributes defined during
the profile session were presented simultaneously on the screen
with a continuous linear scale. The panelists had to click on ‘‘start”
when putting in mouth a sample of water and during the evalua-
tion the subject had to select the attribute considered as dominant
and to score it. When the dominant perception changed, the sub-
ject had to score the new dominant sensation. The data collected
during the tasting of each product for each subject were the time
when an attribute was selected as dominant; the name of the given
attribute and its intensity. Finally, 15 subjects evaluated 13 sam-
ples of water with the TDS methodology.
2.3.3. Free sorting task
Whereas profile and TDS have been performed with trained
panels in a sensory laboratory, the free sorting task has been per-
formed with 389 naïve consumers at a conference. Anyone who at-
tended the conference was invited to taste waters. The free sorting
task simply consists in gathering products according to their sen-
sory similarities. Two products judged similar by a consumer
would be put in the same group and two products judged different
would be separated. The number of groups and the number of sam-
ples per group were free as were the gathering criteria, which may
vary from one consumer to another.
In this study, subjects were presented with the entire set of
samples. First, the assessors had to sort waters into groups with
similar tastes. Then, they were asked to describe each group by
choosing items in a fixed list of 17 descriptors. Finally, they were
asked whether they liked or not the taste of the waters of each
group. They were allowed to answer that a group could contain
liked and disliked waters or to indicate that they did not like nor
dislike the waters of a group.
“Compare this sample with the 3 references labeled A, B and C
Same taste
A 403
Fig. 1. Assessment of the similarities between a product coded 403 and the 3 poles.
969
2.3.4. Polarized sensory positioning
In developing PSP, the idea was to elaborate a comparative
methodology that would not require the use of an excessive num-
ber of samples for each new analysis. Other criteria were that this
method could be used without special training of panels and that it
would enable the aggregation of data from several experiments.
The previous methodologies had highlighted three main tastes
of water. In addition, one interesting feature of natural mineral
waters on the market is that their mineral composition and orga-
noleptic qualities are legally required to remain stable over time.
As classical methodologies highlighted three main tastes of water
(see Part III), three brands were chosen among mineral waters on
the French market. Evian, Volvic and Vittel (called A, B and C during
tasting sessions) were thus selected as prototypes of the three
tastes demonstrated.
The proposed methodology is based on comparison with the
prototypes. It simply involves measuring the sensory similarities
of a water sample with the three prototypes named ‘‘poles”.
Several methods for determining these similarities were inves-
tigated. The method presented in this paper enables the distance to
each pole to be obtained ‘‘independently”. The panelists were sim-
ply asked to provide a score relative to each pole on a continuous
scale ranging from ‘‘exactly the same taste” to ‘‘totally different
taste”.
In the example given in Fig. 1, the product 403 was judged to
have a taste very different from pole A and closer to that of B
and to a lower extent of C.
Finally, 32 consumers tasted 10 waters with this PSP
methodology.
2.4. Data analysis
All analyses were performed using MatlabÒ software (The
MathWorks Inc., 2008) and SASÒ software (SAS Institute Inc.,
2008). A p-value of 0.05 was used for statistical testing.
2.4.1. Sensory profile
With the scores given by trained panels in sensory profiles,
analyses of variance (ANOVAs) allowed determining the significant
descriptors and assessing the repeatability and the agreement
within the panels.
To visualize differences between samples while taking account
of subject notation heterogeneity, Canonical Variables Analysis
(CVA) was carried out based on a multiple analysis of variance
(Manova) model: product + subject + product  subject. CVA axes
maximize the distances between products while minimizing the
residual variability. Confidence ellipses (90%) can be drawn around
each product of the CVA assuming that individual assessments can
Totally different
taste
970 E. Teillet et al. / Food Quality and Preference 21 (2010) 967–976
be projected as supplementary points in the map. To learn more
about Manova and CVA and their advantages in comparison with
Principal Component Analysis (PCA) see for example Monrozier
and Danzart (2001).
2.4.2. Temporal dominance of sensations
First, dominance proportions were used to draw TDS curves
along time, enabling to understand which descriptors are domi-
nant during the tasting of water. Dominance proportions are calcu-
lated by dividing the number of citations of an attribute by the
number of judges and the number of replications; the higher the
dominance rate, the better the agreement among panelists. For
each sample of water, the curves of dominance of all the descrip-
tors were displayed on the same graph.
Two other curves were displayed in order to help us with the
interpretation. The first one called ‘‘chance” represents the domi-
nance rate that an attribute can obtain by chance (1/number of
attributes). The second one called ‘‘significance”, based on a bino-
mial test, expresses the smallest value of the proportion being sig-
nificantly higher than the chance level. When the TDS curves are
above the significance levels, they can be considered as consistent
at panel level.
In addition, the scores given to descriptors through the TDS pro-
cedure can be averaged by product and can be performed through
PCA on the products x descriptors matrix of the mean intensities
for all subjects and all times. CVA has not been employed, because
of the high number of missing data in the individual prod-
ucts  descriptors matrices. Nevertheless, PCA gives a sensory
map which can be easily compared with the maps obtained with
the other sensory methodologies.
2.4.3. Free sorting task
Dissimilarities between stimuli were analyzed using non-met-
ric multidimensional scaling (MDS, Young & Hamer, 1987). For
any pair of samples, the number of consumers having grouped
these items in the same class was chosen as a measure of similarity
(Arabie & Boorman, 1973). Then, considering that a descriptor as-
signed to a group was assigned to all the waters of this group, each
descriptor provided a vector of occurrences that represent the fre-
quency with which each water was so described. These occur-
rences were then correlated to the vectors of product coordinates
on the MDS map. This enables the interpretation of the sensory dif-
ferences between samples. Finally, preference data were coded -1,
0 and +1 when the groups were respectively qualified as ‘‘disliked”,
‘‘neither liked nor disliked” and ‘‘liked”. When a group contained
‘‘some liked and some disliked” waters, the preference data were
Judge j A B
Judge 2 A B P1 C 2.3 1.7 6.8
Judge 1 AP1 B 0.8 C 2.1P2 4.3 4.6 4.8 2.8
P1 P2 2.26.0 7 5.7…0.7
0.8
P2 … 5.3 3.2 …
6.0
… … Pp 3.4 3.1 5.4
… Pp 2.1 5.6 8.6
Pp 2.1 5.2 6.5
X
A, B, C considered
10 - X as descriptors
Statis
Fig. 2. Diagram of data processing for j subjects, p products and 3 poles (A, B, C).
considered as missing. Thus, a new descriptor named ‘‘global pref-
erence” was defined as the sum of liking for each product and cor-
related to the axes.
Finally, in order to evaluate discrimination between the prod-
ucts, confidence ellipses have been calculated thanks to a bootstrap
procedure (see Lee & Young, 1995). Random samples of 389 con-
sumers in the 389 participants with replacement have been pro-
cessed 1000. For each new sample, MDS has been performed on
the total dissimilarity matrix. After optimal rotation and reflections
to fit the reference map, each new MDS coordinates enabled to as-
sess the variability of the positions of the water samples. 90% Con-
fidence ellipses can be drawn.
2.4.4. Polarized sensory positioning
Since A, B and C in the PSP procedure can be seen as products or
as descriptors, there are 2 different ways to process the data.
In one hand, if poles are considered as products, then scores gi-
ven on the scale can be seen as distances between products and
can be coded from 0 for ‘‘same taste” to 10 for ‘‘totally different
taste”. The data can be averaged by sample and techniques of
MDS unfolding (Busing, Groenen, & Heiser, 2005) can be performed
on the mean samples  poles distance matrix. These recent tech-
niques, still rarely used in sensory field, are useful to analyze rect-
angular distance matrices and seem to be the most natural
technique to process PSP data.
In the other hand, poles can also be considered as ‘‘global”
descriptors. Data are then coded 0 for ‘‘totally different taste” to
10 for ‘‘same taste” and can be analyzed with usual techniques
such as PCA after average. Nevertheless, since this methodology
has been undertaken by consumers untrained in scoring on this
scale, techniques of 3-way analysis such as Statis (Lavit, 1988)
were preferred.
These two statistical approaches are compared in the paper.
Fig. 2 summarizes the different data layouts for the unfolding
and the Statis approaches.
3. Results
3.1. Classical methodologies
3.1.1. Sensory profiles
The Anovas showed that 6 descriptors out of 9 were significant
for the profile of bottled waters (astringent, metallic, metallic
aftertaste, bitter, cool, salty) and only 4 out of 11 for the profile
of tap waters (musty, bitter, acid, aftertaste duration). Moreover,
reliability tests showed that panelists agreement and repeatability
C A B C
P1 1.8 5.2 6.3
P2 3.9 6.0 2.6
Mean(X)
…
…
Pp 4.3 9.2 7.3
A, B, C considered
as products
MDS Unfolding
 E. Teillet et al. / Food Quality and Preference 21 (2010) 967–976 971

were poor for this panel on most attributes. These results may be
due to the difficulties of training or the difficulty to define refer-
ences for each descriptor on such ‘‘tasteless” products. A CAP (Con-
trol of Assessor Performances; Schlich, 2000) table, which
summarizes these reliability criteria is not presented here but is
available in Teillet (2009).
CVA of the scores of the descriptors for bottled waters (Fig. 3)
shows a sensory space partly determined by the global mineraliza-
tion (in parentheses in mg/L on the graphs). The profile methodol-
ogy seems to separate waters with moderate mineral content on
the left of the map and waters with high and low mineral content
on the right. Waters on the left are perceived tasteless while others
have a more ‘‘pronounced” taste. Waters with high mineral content
(on the bottom-right) seem to have a salty taste while waters with
low mineral content (on the top right) seem to be more ‘‘metallic”.
The 90% confidence ellipses of Vittel and Mont Roucous have been
drawn, showing that the discrimination between waters is very
poor with the profile methodology. Particularly, there is no real
discrimination between the taste of highly mineralized waters
and the taste of low mineralized waters.
The perceptive space of de-chlorinated tap waters (Fig. 4) has
the same structure, but since there is no high mineral content
water, these samples can be separated only into water with mod-
erate mineralization and waters with low mineral contents, having

0.6

Volvic (121)
cool
0.4
Evian (326) metallic aftertaste
Valvert (206) Aquarel (152)
metallic
0.2
Dimension 2 (16.5%)

Thonon (329) St Amand (894) Mt Roucous (19)

dries the mouth
Vittel (845)
tickles the throat astringent
0 Cristaline (195) bitter
Wattwiller (450)
Contrex (2039)
-0.2 Carola (668) acid
Taillefine (1117)
salty

-0.4 Hépar (2664)

Vauban (1244)
Courmayeur (2305)

-0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1

Dimension 1 (45.5%)

Fig. 3. CVA map of the sensory profile of bottled waters. The total amount of minerals is indicated between parentheses. The confidence ellipses (90%) of Vittel and Mont
Roucous are presented.

0.6

musty
Dijon (290)
0.4 salty

Bellegarde (167) Guerlesquin (93)

astringent
Vigneux (249)
0.2
Dimension 2 (14.3%)

tickles the throat

Flins (460) Thann (60) acid bitter

dries the mouth

0 hard water
Gennevilliers (225)
Auxerre (331) metallic
Epinal (59)
-0.2 Yutz (376)
Orléans (192) aftertaste duration

Champeau (80)
-0.4
cool

Soissons (504)

-0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1

Dimension 1 (40.2%)

Fig. 4. CVA map of the sensory profile of tap waters. The total amount of minerals is indicated between parentheses. The confidence ellipses (90%) of Vigneux and Thann are
presented.
972 E. Teillet et al. / Food Quality and Preference 21 (2010) 967–976

a more pronounced taste. The confidence ellipses are still huge (e.g.
Vigneux and Thann).
This first approach thus confirmed the link between mineral
content and taste of water. However, ANOVAs showed that the
panels had a weak discrimination for most descriptors, and repeat-
ability was very low. In addition, the sensory profile is a time-con-
suming and costly methodology to implement and our panelists
reported that it was very difficult to score the intensity of descrip-
tors in samples that were so similar from a sensory standpoint.
3.1.2. Temporal dominance of sensations
The analysis of dominance proportions showed two main pro-
files of water: waters with and without ‘‘cool” dominance
(Fig. 5). Waters with moderate mineral contents, e.g. Evian, are
dominated by the sensation of coolness, while others were found
to be less cool, e.g. Volvic, Contrex.
Except coolness, a few taste descriptors can reach the signifi-
cance line, showing that the agreement within panelists is low.
Furthermore, the temporal dimension is apparently not required
for the sensory analysis of water tastes. There is apparently no real
sequentiality in the taste of water.
PCA of the scores given through the TDS procedure (Fig. 6) gives
a map which is equivalent in terms of interpretation to the one of
the sensory profile. The map is also partly structured by the total
mineral content.
3.1.3. Free sorting task
MDS analysis showed a 4-axes space of perception but only the
first plan will be discussed in this paper. Fig. 7 shows the results

Fig. 5. TDS curves of Evian, Volvic and Contrex.

 E. Teillet et al. / Food Quality and Preference 21 (2010) 967–976 973

obtained with the free sorting task carried out by consumers. The above all characterized by a higher mineral content perceived
sensory map is highly driven by the mineralization of the samples. and a more pronounced salty taste, while those of Mont Roucous
Tap waters have not been systematically separated from bottled and Thann are characterized by more bitterness. Finally, these four
waters as they are not isolated on the map and as they are located water samples were qualified as ‘‘acid”, ‘‘metallic” and ‘‘astringent”
according to their mineralization. Thus, bottled and de-chlorinated with a ‘‘persistent aftertaste”. These samples with a ‘‘pronounced”
tap waters seem to be part of a same space of perception. Yutz has taste are those with either the lowest or highest mineral content
a particular position in the map due to the presence of undesirable (consistent with profile and TDS results). A medium total mineral
compounds. content of about 300 mg/L thus results in a neutral taste, associ-
Then, correlations of the descriptors provide a sensory interpre- ated with the sensation of coolness of the water and finally the
tation of the map. For example, ‘‘tasteless” and ‘‘cool” descriptors overall appreciation of consumers.
were used most often by consumers to describe waters located at The confidence ellipses derived from the bootstrap procedure
the bottom left of the map (Vigneux, Dijon, Evian, Thonon. . .). (e.g. Thann) shows a better discrimination of the products than
Waters at the top or right of the map, on the other hand were in the profile and TDS procedures. It suggests that large panels of
judged to be less neutral and less cool and more pronounced in consumers can lead to a better discrimination of products than
terms of the other sensory characteristics. Hépar and Contrex are small trained panels.

0.4

Thonon (329) Evian

cool
(326)
Volvic (121)
0.2 Vittel (845)
St Amand (894) Mt Roucous (19)
Dimension 2 (13.6%)

Wattwiller (450)
0
Taillefine (1117) astringent
acid
bitter
Hépar (2664)
-0.2 Valvert (206)
metallic aftertaste
Vauban (1244)
metallic
Carola (668)
-0.4 Contrex (2039)

tickle the throat

dries the mouth
-0.6 salty

-0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2

Dimension 1 (56.5%)

Fig. 6. PCA map of the scores given in TDS procedure.

2
Mont Roucous (19)
Epinal (59)
1.5
Thann (65)
bitter
1 musty pharmacy
metallic
remaining aftertaste
0.5 acid
Dimension 2 (30.6%)

Volvic (121)
astringent
salty Contrex (2039)
Orléans (192) minerals
0
Hépar (2664)

-0.5 coolness Yutz (324)

global liking Vigneux (249) Mineralization
tasteless "bottled water"
-1 Dijon (290)
Thonon (326)
-1.5
Evian (329)

-2
-2 -1.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
Dimension 1 (39.8%)

Fig. 7. MDS map of the free sorting data. Tap waters are in bold type and mineralization is indicated between parentheses. The confidence ellipses (90%) of Thann and Dijon
are presented.
974 E. Teillet et al. / Food Quality and Preference 21 (2010) 967–976

3.1.4. Conclusions on classical methodologies
Lastly, all the sensory methods used showed a perceptive space
which structure depends on the overall mineral composition of the
waters (Figs. 3–7), revealing three principal ‘‘water tastes”: a bitter
and metallic taste for low mineral content waters, a neutral taste
and a sensation of freshness for medium mineral content waters
and finally the more salty taste for highest mineral content waters.
These methods also showed that after eliminating residual chlo-
rine, tap water samples were perceived in the same way as bottled
waters.
Each of the methodologies has its own limitations which pre-
vents it of being used routinely. The sensory profile is time-con-
suming and costly to implement and did not provide us with an
effective discrimination of the waters. The encountered problems
may be due to the difficulty to define references for the panel train-
ing or the use of continuous scales on such similar products
through a non comparative procedure. In addition, the temporal
dimension provided by TDS does not seem to be present in water
perception. Finally, comparative methodologies such as free sort-
ing task do not enable new samples in new analyses to be taken
into account. Indeed, as the results obtained with these methodol-
ogies are conditioned to the set of product used, the aggregation of
data from several studies is not possible unless all samples previ-
ously tested are included.
PSP was thus developed as a mix between comparative and
monadic methodologies in order to improve sensory analysis of
water.
3.2. Polarized sensory positioning (PSP)
The Statis compromise of the PSP data is shown on Fig. 8. In this
approach, poles are considered as global descriptors. This mapping
is a correct reflection of the observed TDS gradient. In addition, one
water sample with an ‘‘off-flavor” (artificially chlorinated Evian
water) was detected and escaped from the mineral content
parabola.

Evian with chlorine (326)

0.1 Contrex (2039)

0.05
Vittel (845)
Dimension 2

Mont Roucous (19)

0
Thann (60)

Volvic (121)
Thonon (329)

-0.05
Dijon (290)
Yutz (376)

Evian (326)
-0.1
-0.1 -0.05 0 0.05 0.1
Dimension 1

Fig. 8. Statis compromise of PSP data.

-0.2

-0.15 Vittel Pole

Contrex (2039)
-0.1 Evian with chlorine (326)

Volvic Pole Vittel (845)

-0.05 Mont Roucous (19)
Volvic (121)
Dimension 2

0 Thann (60)

0.05
Yutz (376)
Thonon (329)
0.1 Dijon (290)
Evian (326)
0.15
Evian Pole

0.2
-0.25 -0.2 -0.15 -0.1 -0.05 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25
Dimension 1

Fig. 9. Statis compromise with inclusion of the poles after dilatation (factor 2.32).
 E. Teillet et al. / Food Quality and Preference 21 (2010) 967–976 975

Volvic (121)
Volvic
1.5
Mont Roucous
Mont Roucous (19) Contrex
Contrex(2039)

1
Vittel
Vittel pole
pole
Volvic pole
Volvic pole
0.5 Thann (60)
Thann
Dimension 2
Vittel
Vittel (845)
0

Evian withchlorine
Evian withchlorine(326)
with chlorine (326)
-0.5
Thonon (329) Yutz (376)
Yutz
Thonon
Dijon (290)
Dijon
-1
Evian (326)
Evian
Evian pole
Evian pole
-1.5
-2.5 -2 -1.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Dimension 1

Fig. 10. Unfolding map of PSP data (axes 1 and 2).

3
Evian
Evian withchlorine
withchlorine(326)
with chlorine (326)
2.5

1.5

Yutz
1 Evian(326) Yutz (367) Contrex
Evian
Dimension 2

Contrex (2039)
0.5
Mont
Mont Roucous
Roucous (19)
Volvic (121)
Volvic Vittel(845)
Vittel
Thann (60)
Thann Evian pole
Evian pole
0
Volvic
Volvic pole
pole Vittel pole
Vittel pole
-0.5
Dijon
Dijon (290)
-1
Thonon
Thonon (329)

-1.5
-2.5 -2 -1.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Dimension 1

Fig. 11. Unfolding map of PSP data (axes 1 and 3).

In this study, Evian, Volvic and Vittel waters were tasted as
poles but also as blind samples. Each pole can be supplementary
projected in the analysis with a distance of 0 from itself and a dis-
tance of 10 to the other poles. But Volvic, Evian and Vittel do not
precisely coincide with each of their corresponding pole as panel-
ists did not use the entire scoring scale. An expansion factor (deter-
mined by a Procrustean analysis) was thus applied (Fig. 9),
showing that samples Volvic, Evian and Vittel are finally located
close to the corresponding poles. Thus, Statis seems to be efficient
in processing PSP data.
Considering poles as products, MDS unfolding is the most rele-
vant statistical method. The analysis determined a 3 dimension
space. In the first plan, the gradient of mineralization can be found
again (Fig. 10). On this plan, the off-flavor ‘‘Evian with chlorine”
seems to be closer to Evian than other poles, but this product is iso-
lated on dimension 3 (Fig. 11). Thus, the first plan could represent
the ‘‘real” taste of water whereas dimension 3 points out the off-
flavors.
Even though the results obtained were consistent, validation
of this PSP method is currently based only on the logic of min-
eral content observed in prior studies. Other performance crite-
ria should be defined. The results in terms of interpretation are
nevertheless equivalent to those obtained with the different
classical sensory methods we tested. Particularly, PSP discrimi-
nates better the tastes of low and high mineralized water than
sensory profile.
976 E. Teillet et al. / Food Quality and Preference 21 (2010) 967–976
4. Discussion – Conclusion
As explained in the introduction, the experiments have not
been designed in order to compare the sensory methodologies.
Such a study would have required, for example, the use of the
same products. Nevertheless, the results obtained are expected
to emphasize the main pros and cons of the different methodol-
ogies used.
The different classical sensory methodologies tested in this
work have confirmed that sensory analysis of water is a difficult
task. But results suggested a continuum of the taste of water along
the total mineralization associated with 3 major kinds of taste: al-
most bitter and metallic for low mineral content waters, neutral
and fresh for medium mineral content waters and more salty for
highest mineral content waters. The study also highlighted the pre-
dominance of coolness during the tasting of water and its link to
the mean preference. Nevertheless, beyond the link with overall
mineral content, it would be relevant to measure the contribution
of each mineral to the taste of natural waters. Furthermore, con-
sumer preferences are addressed and detailed in dedicated ongo-
ing works.
The study showed that sensory profile is certainly unsuited in
sensory analysis of water, while comparative methods (free sorting
task) give better results but do not enable the rapid analysis of new
samples.
The method of Polarized Sensory Positioning developed offers
bright perspectives for routine sensory analysis of water samples.
Its use could be generalized to a more exhaustive study of water
in France and perhaps throughout the world. Besides, PSP data
from different taste sessions and different panels have already
been successfully aggregated by authors.
PSP methodology provides promising results and should ulti-
mately enable the sensory characteristics of a given water to be
determined as well as limiting the number of samples to taste.
There still remain a substantial number of questions to improve
and generalize the use of the technique.
First of all from a semantic standpoint, the ‘‘Totally different
taste” anchor of the scale poses a problem since this notion is
inherent to each individual. In this context, a ‘‘standardization” of
the scores of each panelist could be considered. If this is not possi-
ble, the nature of the scale could be changed.
Secondly, the choice of sensory poles totally determines the re-
sults obtained. Thus, the number of poles to use and their sensory
characteristics are important factors of the analysis that should be
objectively defined.
In addition, this PSP method provides a new type of sensory
data that can be processed in different ways (PCA, MDS, Statis,
INDSCAL, Unfolding. . .), and the choice between Statis and
Unfolding is really difficult to make even if unfolding seems to
be slightly richer in information (3 axes space). More, the perfor-
mance criterion adopted for this study is based only on the struc-
ture of the sensory space studied. Other criteria should be
defined, such as repeatability, discrimination power of products
(via confidence ellipses) or others. These considerations will be
the topic of next works.
Finally, the addition of descriptive (verbatim) and hedonic data
via PSP methodology should be examined.
In summary, the characteristics of this method make it an inter-
esting candidate for other product spaces for which the concept of
‘‘sensory poles” can be defined, for example in perfumes or soda
markets.
Acknowledgements
This work has been funded by Lyonnaise des Eaux and the
Agence Nationale de la Recherche Technique (ANRT) and has been
initiated by the competitive cluster VITAGORA.
Thanks a lot to Philippe Courcoux (ENITIAA, Nantes, France)
who introduced the authors with the unfolding techniques.
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