Cocoa is one of the most important cultivated crops worldwide both in production and processing. But due to the change in weather conditions, pest and diseases, producers are looking into new bean varieties and alternatives (e.g. carob) which can influence of the sensory properties of chocolate. But also the other ingredients, the production process and storage conditions play a role in the sensory properties of chocolate products. Although chocolate has been widely used as a product for scientific research, especially given its association with the arousal of pleasure by consumers, there is a lack of a sensory lexicon of chocolate products generated by consumers.

This study aims to identify sensory characteristics with respect to the four sensory modalities (appearance, aroma, texture and flavour), which are important for chocolate consumption and visualize them in a chocolate sensory wheel. Five focus groups with consumers (n = 48) generated in total 104 descriptors using a range of range of white (5 different samples), milk (8 different samples) and dark (9 different samples) chocolates. A three-tiered chocolate sensory wheel, comprising of the 4 sensory modalities, 21 categories and 104 descriptors, was created to form a graphical presentation of the sensory lexicon. Based on the descriptors obtained from the five focus groups, in total nine commercial samples of white, milk and dark chocolate were characterised using descriptive analysis by a trained sensory panel. The results of the descriptive analysis show that samples can be differentiated based on the attributes of the sensory lexicon.

Given that identifying, understanding and using the sensory characteristics that are most important to a consumer is crucial for companies but also for scientists using chocolate products, the chocolate sensory lexicon will be of added value in new product development and quality assurance.

在生产和加工中，可可是世界上最重要的栽培作物之一。但是由于天气条件，病虫害的变化，生产商正在研究可能影响巧克力感官特性的新豆品种和替代品（例如角豆）。而且，其他成分，生产过程和储存条件也对巧克力产品的感官特性产生影响。尽管巧克力已被广泛用作科学研究的产品，特别是考虑到它与消费者的愉悦感相关联，但缺乏消费者产生的巧克力产品的感官词典。

这项研究的目的是针对四种感官模式（外观，香气，质地和风味）识别感官特征，这对于巧克力的食用很重要，并在巧克力感官轮中将其可视化。与消费者的五个焦点小组（n 总共48个描述符中生成了= 48），其中使用了一系列白巧克力（5种不同样品），牛奶（8种不同样品）和黑巧克力（9种不同样品）。创建了一个三层巧克力感官轮，其中包括4种感官模式，21个类别和104个描述符，以形成感官词典的图形表示。根据从五个焦点小组获得的描述信息，由经过训练的感官小组使用描述性分析对总共九种白巧克力，牛奶和黑巧克力的商业样本进行了表征。描述性分析的结果表明，可以根据感觉词典的属性来区分样本。

鉴于识别，理解和使用对消费者最重要的感官特性对公司以及使用巧克力产品的科学家都至关重要，因此巧克力感官词典将在新产品开发和质量保证中具有附加值。