5-level evaluation
The tasting sheet for a compound product: appearance, components, integration, aftertaste, and rating, step by step.
Goal
Evaluate a complete compound product across five ordered levels. Each level is a tab on the sheet; at the end, AreaCacao aggregates the sheets from the whole panel to produce the integration results.
How to get there
- URL:
https://app.areacacao.com/sensory-analysis/compounds/[sample]/evaluate - How to reach it: in Compound products, click Evaluate 5 levels on the sample you want to evaluate.
Pro plan and above.
The sheet
The header shows New evaluation — Compound product (or Edit evaluation if you reopen an existing one). Below it, the sheet itself is titled Evaluation sheet — Compound product and reminds you that you're evaluating across 5 levels per briefing §19.2. The sheet has five tabs, one per level, and a footer with the summary and the submit button.
The sheet is filled in from your account and isn't linked to any panelist: each submission counts as one evaluation. To gather several tasters' opinions, fill in one sheet per taster (from the results, with + New evaluation).
The five levels
1. Appearance
In the defects panel, mark the catalog defects (Defect category) you detect in the product.
2. Components
For each component defined in the sample, a tab with a RATA panel: you mark the attributes you perceive (the catalog's Base and Complementary attributes) and give each one an intensity from 0 to 10 in steps of 0.5 (it starts at 5). You evaluate component by component.
3. Integration
The integration attributes panel evaluates how the components coexist in the mouth, not how they are individually. You score four mandatory canonical attributes and three optional complementary ones on a 0-10 scale in steps of 0.5, each with a free-notes field (up to 500 characters):
- Harmony (required): coherence between components.
- Dominance (required): which component prevails. It's a bidirectional axis: 0 means one component dominates, 5 is full balance, 10 means the other dominates.
- Sequence (required): the temporal order in which the flavors appear.
- Contrast (required): expressive clash or balance between components.
- Synergy (optional): the whole adds up to more than the sum of its parts.
- Integration complexity (optional): perceptible temporal layers of the whole.
- Originality (optional): a combination perceived as distinctive or memorable.
4. Aftertaste
The same RATA panel, for the whole product: you mark the attributes that persist in the mouth after you swallow, and their intensity.
5. Rating
The overall rating panel: you assign an overall rating of the whole product on a 0-10 scale and select the qualities that describe it. It also includes a Free notes (max 2000) field for comments on the whole product that don't fit a specific level.
Submit the evaluation
The sheet's footer summarizes your progress: how many components you've covered, how many defects you've recorded, whether integration has been started, and whether the rating is set. Click Submit evaluation to save it; AreaCacao takes you to the results screen.
If the sample has no components defined, you'll see This sample has no components defined. along with an invitation to define components first. See Configure components.
Reopen and edit a sheet
From the results screen you can Reopen an already-saved evaluation: the sheet opens with its responses preloaded. When you click Submit evaluation it's saved as a new evaluation; the original isn't changed and still counts in the results.