Development of a texture evaluation system for winter jujube (Ziziphus jujuba ‘Dongzao’)

Winter jujube (Ziziphus jujuba ‘Dongzao’) is an excellent late maturing variety of fresh-eating jujube in China. Fruit texture is an important indicator of sensory quality. To investigate the correlations among texture indices and establish an evaluation system for winter jujube texture, we used the TMS-Touch instrument to perform a texture profile analysis (TPA) on 1 150 winter jujubes from three major producing areas in China. Eight indices and their best-fit distribution were obtained, including fracture (Pearson), hardness (InvGauss), adhesive force (Weibull), adhesiveness (LogLogistic), cohesiveness (LogLogistic), springiness (BetaGeneral), gumminess (InvGauss), and chewiness (InvGauss). Based on the best-fit distribution curves, each index was divided into five grades (lower, low, medium, high and higher) by the 10th, 30th, 70th and 90th percentiles. Among the texture indices, 82% of the correlation coefficients were highly significant (P