Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Perfumery Radar & Coffee

The economist reports on Portuguese research aiming to reliably classify perfumes into families based on detailed analysis of scent chemicals.  Known as Perfumery Radar, the process establishes a detailed correlation plot between thousands of scent components and traditional quality descriptors like "citrus" or "chypre."

Here's a diagram of some of the results.  Does it look familiar?



The researchers don't mention coffee, but it seems like it would be easy to extend their gas chromatography process to develop automated versions of coffee flavor plots.

I see possible applications for this tool in the ongoing professional development of Q graders and perhaps expansion and further standardization of Q vocabulary.  A standardized coffee radar plot would also be a useful in correlating processing methods and genotype to particular flavor profiles.

What would you do with coffee radar?

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