Collection of Japanese texture terms - (Studies on Japanese texture terms Part I)

Texture descriptive terms in Japanese were collected and validated. Five hundred and ninety-nine words were obtained from an open-ended questionnaire distributed to 116 food specialists in Sendai, northern area (25 individuals), Tokyo, central area (29), Osaka, western area (32) and Kagoshima, southern area (30). Out of these 599 words 332 terms were selected in a 2-day roundtable discussion made by 4 researchers. To the 332 terms added were 94 terms that have been collected from dictionaries, technical books on food texture and research papers about food texture. Thus, a list of 426 terms was presented to 55 selected assessors who had some experience of research on texture. They were asked whether these terms correctly expressed food texture. Then the data were evaluated by 4 experts who had been engaged in research on food texture or rheology for a long time. As a result of deletion and addition, 445 terms were obtained as a texture descriptive language. About 70% of the terms are onomatopoeic words. This shows onomatopoeic words play an important role in texture description in Japanese. Compared with the data taken from questionnaires in 1968, some new onomatopoeic words such as "mochi-mochi" and "puru-puru" are included in the list.