Sensory Analysis of New Varieties of Citrus as a Complementary Strategy to the Brazilian Citriculture

In Brazil new varieties of citrus were selected along the years, but none sensory analysis is usually made to verify the acceptance as one of the bottleneck for fresh citrus juice industry and before the commercial release. We have evaluated the response of consumers (n=62) for eight new hybrids of the crossing between sweet orange and mandarin in five sensory attributes and used analysis of variance Tukey's procedure (HSD) and internal preference mapping for the data processing. The results were compared in relation to their standard physical-chemical characteristics and with commercial varieties- Murcott tangor (Citrus sinensis (L.) Osbeck x Citrus reticulata Blanco), Pera sweet orange (Citrus sinensis (L.) Osbeck, Cravo mandarin (Citrus reticulata Blanco). Hybrids TM x LP 222 and TC x LP 5 are candidates to become variety and TM x LP 94 was chosen for new sensory analysis. Flavor featured as the most important parameter for orange juice and some hybrids with adequate physical-chemical parameters presented low acceptance, while others with inadequate parameters showed good acceptability, what suggests a new way to fruit selection.