Evaluation of spices and oleoresin‐VI‐pungency of ginger components, gingerols and shogoals and quality

Summary The pungent compounds of ginger had earlier been shown to be homologous gingerols, the dehydration product shogaols and the degradation product zingerone. The changes in these compounds are reported to affect quality with reduction in pungency and formation of off‐flavour. Contrary to earlier assumptions, careful threshold tests for pungency of different oleoresins and purified pungent isolates, gingerols and shogaols established that shogaols are twice as pungent as gingerols. With this ratio of pungency of gingerols and shogaols, the calculated values agreed well with the estimated values of pungency in different ginger oleoresin samples. Occurrence of other non‐pungent phenolics with close Rf values to the pungent compounds have been confirmed.