Abstract:Taking grey jujubes from six main producing regions in China as the research objects, the fuzzy sensory evaluation method was used to conduct a comprehensive sensory evaluation on these grey jujubes, and the difference in structural parameters, color difference parameters, and physico-chemical and nutritional parameters among the jujubes were simultaneously analyzed. The results showed that the gray jujubes in Ruoqiang area of Xinjiang had the highest comprehensive sensory score (85.62), and those from the Xinzheng area of Henan had the lowest comprehensive sensory score (72.62), thus, the former was ranked higher than the latter in sensory evaluation. The variation of the red values, a values, of fruit peel was 21.78~24.63, while the variation of the yellow values, b values, of fruit flesh was 28.44-32.22. Among them, the peel of the grey jujubes from the Tumushuk region had the highest redness, and the flesh of the grey jujubes from the Hetian region had the highest yellowness. The texture data showed that the grey jujube in Aral and Ruoqiang regions were firmer, more compact and chewier, while the chewability and cohesiveness of the grey jujubes in Xinzheng region were relatively poor. The contents of total sugars, reducing sugars, total acids, vitamin C, total phenolics of the grey jujubes from all the regions were 76.47~84.95 g/100 g, 32.30~46.90 g/100 g, 4.28~5.34 g/kg, 15.56~30.12 mg/100 g, 1622.30~1756.00 mg/kg, respectively. The nutritional indices of the Xinjiang grey jujube were significantly higher than those of Henan Xinzheng. The correlation between sensory and physico-chemical results indicated that the difference in the a value of fruit peel could characterize the color quality of jujube fruit, and the texture parameters such as firmness and chewiness could be used to evaluate the tissue state of jujube fruit.
