Predicting consumer preferences for mineral composition of bottled and tap water

Abstract

The overall liking for taste of water was correlated with the mineral composition of selected bottled and tap waters. Sixty-nine untrained volunteers assessed and rated twenty-five different commercial bottled and tap waters from. Water samples were physicochemical characterised by analysing conductivity, pH, total dissolved solids (TDS) and major anions and cations: HCO₃^-, SO₄^2-, Cl^-, NO₃^-, Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺, Na⁺, and K⁺. Residual chlorine levels were also analysed in the tap water samples. Globally, volunteers preferred waters rich in calcium bicarbonate and sulfate, rather than in sodium chloride. This study also demonstrated that it was possible to accurately predict the overall liking by a Partial Least Squares regression using either all measured physicochemical parameters or a reduced number of them. These results were in agreement with previously published results using trained panellists.

Keywords: Bottled and Tap; Chemometrics; Consumer preference; Taste.