The most important tropical fruits used in juice production are passion fruit and mango. They are especially liked due to their intense aromas. Aroma and flavor are results of many constituents that are present in different concentrations, which are very sensitive to changes during thermal treatment used in the juice production. This work aimed at developing the sensory profile and evaluating the changes that may occur during the passion fruit juice processing. Three passion fruit juices were analyzed: the raw material (pulp), which was pasteurized, kept in tambour and frozen; the ready-to-drink (formulated with sugar and water); and the pasteurized at 98 ºC, 30s. The sensory profile was composed of 13 attributes The quantitative descriptive analysis design comprised two factors, i.e. type of juice and panelists. The results were also analyzed using principal components analysis. Significant differences were found among the three juices except for the attribute passion fruit aroma and sweet aroma. the artificial aroma, cooked aroma, fermented aroma and fermented flavor were significantly higher (p<0.05) on the processed passion fruit juice. The first two principal components accounted for 57% of the variance. There were significant differences among the three juices regarding the colour parameters, except for the haze. The frozen juice kept in tambour was darker than both the formulated juice and the pasteurized juice. The red color of the frozen juice kept in tambour and the formulated juice was similar. On the other hand, the red color for the pasteurized juice was less intense. However the yellow colour was higher on the formulated juice, presenting lower values on the pasteurized juice and on the frozen juice kept in tambour.
passion fruit juice; sensory evaluation; colour
