Organoleptic parameters such as color, odor, and flavor influence consumer perception of drinking water quality. This study aims to evaluate the taste of the selected bottled and tap water samples using an electronic tongue (E-tongue) instead of a sensory test. Bottled and tap water's mineral components are related to the overall preference for water taste. Contrary to the sensory test, the potentiometric E-tongue method presented in this study distinguishes taste by measuring the mineral components in water, and the data obtained can be statistically analyzed. Eleven bottled water products from various brands and one tap water from I city in Korea were evaluated. The E-tongue data were statistically analyzed using multivariate statistical tools such as hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA), principal component analysis (PCA), and partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA). The results show that the E-tongue method can clearly distinguish taste discrimination in drinking water differing in water quality based on the ion-related water quality parameters. The water quality parameters that affect taste discrimination were found to be total dissolved solids (TDS), sodium (Na+), calcium (Ca2+), magnesium (Mg2+), sulfate (SO4 2-), chloride (Cl-), potassium (K+) and pH. The distance calculation of HCA was used to quantify the differences between 12 different types of drinking water. The proposed E-tongue method is a practical tool to quantitatively evaluate the differences between samples in water quality items related to the ionic components. It can be helpful in quality control of drinking water.

The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of gender on meat quality traits and sensory characteristics of pork loin. A total of 90 pork carcasses (180 days old, 45 barrows and 45 gilts, each gender group was consisted of fifteen 1+, 1 and 2 carcass grades) were selected and loin cuts were excised to investigate meat quality, electronic tongue measures and sensory panel test. There were significant differences in drip loss (1.66% vs 1.21%), released water (12.19% vs 10.68%) and cooking loss (23.67% vs 21.04%) between loins from barrow and gilt (p<0.05). However, no significant differences in meat color (CIE L* a* b*) and shear force were observed between gender groups (p>0.05). Umami and richness values of barrow were significantly higher than those of gilt, while barrow had significantly lower sourness value compared to gilt (p<0.05). On the sensory evaluation, barrow scored higher in flavor, juiciness and tenderness both, and as a result, barrow (5.51 points) also scored significantly higher than gilt (4.86 points). These results suggest that the umami intensity and sensory taste of barrow loin are superior to gilt loin due to its high water-holding capacity.