Glossary

Foodpairing dictionary

Sensory descriptor

A sensory descriptor is a label used to describe a specific sensory property of an ingredient. We differentiate between 4 types: 

  • Aroma descriptors contain properties like ‘almond’, ‘cherry’ and ‘mustard’
  • Texture descriptors contain properties like ‘crunchy’, ‘hard’ and ‘gooey’
  • Taste descriptors contain the five basic tastes ‘salt’, ‘sour’, ‘sweet’, ‘bitter’, and ‘umami’ and three additional descriptors ‘fatty’ (or ‘oleogustus’), ‘astringent’, and ‘pungent’. 
Trigeminal taste descriptors contain taste sensations ‘astringent’, ‘pungent’, ‘cooling’ and ‘tingling’.