Coffee Science, Lavras, v. 13, n. 3, p. 401 - 409, jul./sep. 2018 Gutiérrez-Guzmán, N. et al. 401 A NOVEL TASTING PLATFORM FOR SENSORY ANALYSIS OF SPECIALTY COFFEE Nelson Gutiérrez-Guzmán 1 , Albeiro Cortés-Cabezas 2 , Edgar Chambers IV 3 (Received: July 13, 2018; accepted: August 07, 2018) ABSTRACT: Although there are many good tools to evaluate coffee, such as rigorous cupping protocols, all of them require improvements in order to beneft scientifc research. One aspect to highlight is that coffee is a very important product worldwide and has been and is being investigated for its complexity. All research and any improvement in crop or processing ends-up being verifed in the coffee cup quality, which is accomplished through the cupping procedures. However, suffcient tools have not been designed in order to manage the cupping procedures, in accordance with the technological level we have available now. Basically, sheets of paper are used to manage the cupping scores, which hinder the subsequent analysis process, making hard to know what happens inside coffee beans with greater precision and thoroughness. Another worrying aspect is that each region, at each country uses a different format with different favor references to carry out the scoring, which has generated problems of unity of criteria on the analysis and this is not good to the coffee business. This paper presents the design of a web platform to make information storage and results processing of cupping procedures of specialty coffees easier. The main objective is to achieve better managing of the cupping model for the sensory analysis using a digital environment, allowing greater agility in the treatment of results and a more organized management of the information of the specialty coffees. Index terms: Sensory evaluation of specialty coffee, cupping protocols, quality attribute, information systems. UM NOVO SISTEMA DE INFORMAÇÃO PARA A ANÁLISE SENSORIAL DE CAFÉS ESPECIAIS RESUMO: Embora existam diversas boas ferramentas para avaliar a qualidade do café, tais como os rigorosos protocolos de degustação, todas elas exigem melhorias para benefciar a pesquisa científca. Destaca-se que o café é um produto de grande importância no mundo inteiro e tem sido investigado por sua complexidade. Toda pesquisa e qualquer melhoria na cultura e no processamento se verifca na qualidade da xícara do café por meio dos procedimentos de degustação. Porém, não foram desenvolvidas ferramentas sufcientes para a gestão desses procedimentos de acordo com o nível tecnológico disponível atualmente. Basicamente, são utilizadas folhas de papel para armazenar os resultados da degustação, o que difculta a análise subsequente e torna mais difícil saber o que acontece no interior do grão de café com maior precisão e rigor. Outro aspecto importante é que cada região em cada país utiliza um formato distinto com referências de sabor diferentes para atribuir a pontuação, o qual tem gerado problemas de unidade de critérios na análise, e isso não é bom para o negócio do café. Apresenta- se neste trabalho o desenho de uma plataforma web para facilitar o armazenamento e tratamento da informação dos resultados das análises sensoriais de cafés especiais. O objetivo principal é conseguir uma melhor administração do modelo de testes para a análise sensorial das amostras em um ambiente digital que permite maior agilidade no tratamento dos resultados e um manejo mais organizado da informação do café especial. Termos para indexação: Análise sensorial de café especial, protocolos de degustação, atributos de qualidade, sistemas de informação. 1 INTRODUCTION Coffee is one of the most popular and consumed drinks in the world, thanks to its organoleptic characteristics and stimulating effects (ALVES; CASAL; OLIVEIRA, 2010; DI BELLA et al., 2014). Due to this, since the 90s, the term “specialty coffee” has been used to refer to the quality of coffee, in order to describe one with excellent and unique favor (PICCINO et al., 2014). During the last decade, there has been an increase in the knowledge of parameters that defne the quality of coffee bean, among them stands out 1 Centro Surcolombiano de Investigación en Café CESURCAFE/Universidad Surcolombiana -Departamento de Ingeniería Agrícola - Cx.P. 410001 -Neiva - Colombia - ngutierrezg@usco.edu.co 2 Departamento de Ingeniería Electrónica - Centro Surcolombiano de Investigación en Café CESURCAFE/Universidad Surcolombiana - Cx.P. 410001 - Neiva - Colombia - albecor@usco.edu.co 3 Sensory Analysis Center/Kansas State University - Cx.P. 66506 - Manhattan - Kansas - USA - eciv@ksu.edu the value of the aromas and differentiating notes in the cup. Currently coffee is grown in more than 70 countries, with Brazil being the largest producer, followed by Vietnam and Colombia (BICHO et al., 2013; DI BELLA et al., 2014). The Huila region is a pioneer in coffee production in Colombia, with 126 thousand hectares, where 2.5 million bags of 60 kilos were produced during 2016 and also leads the production of specialty coffees in the country. The Strategic Plan for Science, Technology and Innovation 2010-2032 for the Huila region