Administrators documentation¶

Overview¶

In order to collect meaningful data on the sensory profile of spirits or wines efficiently, Tastebuddy requires administrators to carefully design the tasting process. There are three key components to this process:

Tasters: they are the direct users of the application and the people who provide their expertise on the samples being evaluated;
Products: either wine or spirits, they are the samples on which the sensory evaluation is performed;
Tasting protocols: they define the set of criteria (and associated weights) on which the evaluation will focus;

Example protocols and products

On account creation, a tasting protocol and example products are automatically added for illustrative purposes. They can be safely used as is, modified or deleted

Getting started¶

Tastebuddy has been designed to give users as much freedom as possible to adapt to a maximum number of practical use cases. Conceptually, a sensory evaluation is based on three basic building blocks that can be combined and mixed depending on the scenario: a set of criteria or characteristics that the sensory analysis should focus on, assessors or tasters to provide the expertise, and of course the sample(s) to be evaluated.

These fundamental building blocks can be created, edited or combined to achieve a defined goal.

Functional diagram — Conceptual diagram of TasteBuddy functionning

Although products can be created on the fly (i.e. added directly at the time of evaluation), careful preparation and experimental design should be performed by the administrators before conducting any sensory evaluation.

Definitions¶

The following words will be used along this documentation. Getting familiar with the concepts will help to understand the next pages.

Sensory evaluation or Tasting: Sensory evaluation of one or more products based on a pre-defined set of criteria associated with a discrete point scale (e.g. sweet- ness from 1 to 6, complexity from 1 to 10, etc.). Tasting notes or comments can also be added to justify the scores.
Tasting criterion: A characteristic of a product to be rated on a discrete scale. Usually grouped by category (e.g. nose, palate).
Tasting sheet or Tasting grid: A set of selected criteria used during a tasting. Any number of criteria can be used, depending on the application.
Punctual tasting or One-off tasting: Sensory evaluation of a single product by a single assessor.
Tasting session: Simultaneous comparative tasting of two or more products in a predetermined order by one or more tasters. The same tasting sheet is used for each product and by each taster; each taster must evaluate all the samples in one go, but they do not necessarily perform the evaluation synchronously. All products are evaluated at the same time, and it is possible to move back and forth between samples. A tracking page is associated, showing the progress of each associated user within the product flight.
Flight or Series: Ordered list of products to be comparatively evaluated during a tasting session.
Dashboard: Collection of graphics illustrating the results of past tastings
Product: Spirit or Wine on which a sensory evaluation is carried out. Sometimes referred to as a sample.