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In this study, we examined the chemical quality (total protein, total lipid, starch, piperine, and essential oil contents) and flavour quality of white pepper (Piper nigrum L.) derived from grafted and non-grafted plants over 3 years. We employed gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC–MS) to analyse major volatiles and sensory evaluation to assess the flavour quality of white pepper derived from grafting and non-grafting. Within the six groups of white pepper samples, few differences were found in their chemical composition, and most features were primarily considered the same. However, the total lipid content was much higher in the non-grafting samples than in the grafted samples. The reason for this difference was likely due to stock grafting from diverse sources, which affected the transport of some nutrients, but the difference in lipid content was not necessarily large. The characterization of the main chemical compounds (caryophyllene, cyclohexene, caryophyllene oxide, and isospathulenol), volatile compounds, and volatile profiles of two treatments (grafted and non-grafted plants) and three samples were taken from each treatment showed little differences across all of the samples, perhaps indicating that grafting had little effect on the aroma components of white pepper. We examined the volatile compounds of white pepper derived from six groups by principal component analysis (PCA) to support our sensory and instrumental data. These results suggest that grafting is promising for the cultivation of Piper nigrum L. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improving flavour quality traits in fruit breeding calls for innovative consumer-oriented product development. This paper explores the potential of marker-assisted breeding from genomics and consumer-based quality-improvement models from marketing, and exploits the progresses at both sides as technology push and market pull. An integrative and cross-disciplinary quality-improvement model is proposed based on Bayesian modelling. This Bayesian modelling allows for the integration of elicited knowledge of breeders and flavour researchers concerning the degree of causal associations of metabolites and flavour quality traits of fruits in the model. We also present the flavour quality improvement challenge as a multi-criteria optimization process and show the potential and current limitations of the proposed model. Insights gained from the model would help flavour researchers determine the optimum concentration of flavour-affecting metabolites which could be used for further DNA marker development. These ideas and concepts will help translate consumer-desired product features into genomic information, ultimately resulting in successful new cultivars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Use of endogenous non-volatile flavour components, i. e. sugars and organic acids, in fruit juice products is desirable. A study of 133 blackcurrant concentrates from three seasons examined variation in sugars and acids arising from storage of fruit at freezing or sub-ambient temperature, seasonal differences, geographical origin and choice of conventional thermal-evaporative or freeze concentration technology. Compared with freeze concentrates, conventional concentrates had significantly higher contents of total sugars and acids, notably malic acid, and higher fructose/glucose, lower malic/citric acid and similar sugar/acid ratios. Concentrates from frozen fruit generally had smaller amounts of fructose, total sugars and fructose/glucose ratios than those from fresh fruit, as well as less citric, ascorbic and total acids and lower sugar/acid ratios. Principal component analysis of 40 randomly chosen concentrates showed that variance is dominated by differences in fructose, total sugars and ascorbic acid contents and sugar/acid ratios. Geographical origin and concentration technology were major sources of variance but changes in post-production sub-ambient storage could not be excluded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]