Statistical procedure for the composition of a sensory panel of blends of coffee with different qualities using the distribution of the extremes of the highest scores

Abstract

The identification and interpretation of discrepant observations in sensory experiments are difficult to implement since the external effects are associated with the individual consumer. This fact becomes more relevant in experiments that involve blends, which scrutinize coffees with different qualities, varieties, origins, and forms of processing and preparation. This work proposes a statistical procedure that facilitates the identification of outliers while also evaluating the discriminatory powers of a sensory panel concerning the differentiation of pure blends and coffees. For this purpose, four experiments were performed that tested coffees with different qualities and varieties. The results suggest that the statistical procedure proposed in this work was effective for discriminating the blends relative to the pure coffees and that the effects of the concentrations and types of processing did not interfere with the statistical evaluations.