Extraction of sensory features from online reviews using text analysis: an example with beer

We probably live in the golden age of food and cooking. Consumers tend nowadays to be more aware about the different aspects regarding food consumption and preparation. Not only people are encouraged to taste and try new and different products, but also to review them, often by sharing their opinions on specialized social networks. Users can rate and describe what they did like or not about a kind of food product, sometimes using terms which are very similar or even in common with those used in the field of sensory analysis. As a part of a project which is based on using analytical chemistry in synergy with advanced data analysis, the idea proposed here is to apply text analysis methods to study how different beer products were rated and reviewed by the users of Ratebeer.com.