Regresar

PHYSICOCHEMICAL AND SENSORY DIVERSITY OF 60 ELITE TREES OF THEOBROMA CACAO L., FROM SOUTHERN ECUADOR

Abstract:

Theobroma cacao L. has a wide phenotypic diversity in Ecuador due to the great variability of its ecogeographic scenarios in which it is cultivated, the province of El Oro is among the three zones that register areas of cultivation of fine and aroma cacao. The objective of this work was to characterize in a physicochemical and sensory way 60 representative cacao trees from the south of Ecuador. For the charac-terization, 22 quantitative and qualitative physicochemical and sensory descriptors were used. The PCA analysis showed that the most discriminating descriptors were: total fermentation (FET), deficient grains (GRD), vain grains (GRV), good fermentation (FEB), medium fermentation (FEM), pH of the fermented and dry grain (pHG), acidity of the liquor (Acid), violet grains (GRVi) and antioxidant activity (ACO) that explain 80% of the total accumulated variance. In the cluster analysis, a dendrogram was obtained that shows ten well-defined groups. The cocoa beans that have a high percentage of fat present low antioxidant activity and vice versa, among the 60 cocoas analyzed there are samples with high antioxidant activity.