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Research Project
Desenvolvimento e avaliação dos perfis sensorial e emocional de infusões premium e otimização da valorização de características extrínsecas.
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Consumers’ associations with herbal infusions and home preparation practices
Publication . Rocha, Célia; Moura, Ana Pinto de; Cunha, Luís Miguel
The consumption of infusions is affected by many factors, namely those associated with culture, health and sensory properties. The main goal of this research was to explore and understand consumers’ perceptions and behaviours regarding consumption and preparation of herbal infusions, applying a mixed methodology: the evaluation of consumers’ behaviours, assessed through direct self-reported measures, and indirect methods, such as free word association and auto-videography. A total of 489 Portuguese consumers replied to a web-based questionnaire. Based on their frequency of consumption and availability, 60 participants were selected for an observational study. Over 27% of the participants had at least a daily cup of herbal infusion, and over 74% had it at least every week. At home, participants reported the use of teapots (44.1%) or mugs/cups (52.0%) to prepare their infusions, and mostly chose bags (77.7%). Approximately 80% of the respondents removed the bags or loose leaves after steeping, mainly based on the infusion colour (53.1%). The freeword association results show that daily and weekly consumers establish a stronger connection with the sensory, emotional, health and wellbeing dimensions of the product, while less frequent consumers only consider the composition of the herbal infusion. From the observational study, it was noticeable that most of the consumers take less than one minute to steep the infusions, clearly below the four to ten minutes recommended for the most popular herbal infusions, like lemon verbena or peppermint. These results emphasize the need for communication strategies focused on the preparation process to give consumers tools to improve their sensory experience.
Consumer-led adaptation of the EsSense Profile® for herbal infusions
Publication . Rocha, Célia; Moura, Ana Pinto de; Pereira, Diana; Lima, Rui Costa; Cunha, Luís Miguel
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.
Application of eye-tracking technology for the evaluation of different packaging designs for premium organic herbal teas
Publication . Rocha, C.; Lima, Rui C.; Alves, L.; Moura, Ana Pinto de; Cunha, Luís Miguel
The main goal
of this study was to assess the impact four graphic designs (figure 1) on the perception
of different extrinsic characteristics (premium and organic denomination, infusion
name and brand).
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Funding agency
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
Funding programme
Funding Award Number
SFRH/BDE/100483/2014