Physiochemical and Organoleptic Evaluation of Drink Produced from Pineapple (Ananas comosus) and Tigernut (Cyperus esculentus)

Pineapple, one of the most popular tropical fruits is largely desired for its attractive flavor and can be processed into juice. Fruit juice blends can be produced from various fruits or food materials such as tigernut an underutilized tuber, in order to give better quality drink nutritionally and organoleptically. This work therefore evaluated some quality attributes of the beverage produced from tigernut and pineapple. Tigernut and Pineapple fruit were purchased from local market at Ogbomoso. Single strength juice was produced from pineapple fruit while the tigernut milky extract was produced. The pineapple juice was blended with tigernut milky extract in different proportions (95:5, 90:10, 85:15, 80:20 and 75:25%) while 100% pineapple juice served as the control and were analyzed for physico-chemical composition and sensory evaluation (Colour, flavor, taste and overall acceptability). The data obtained were subjected to statistical analysis. The results showed that the physico-chemical properties of juice compared relatively well with the control and sensory evaluation showed that all the juice samples were well acceptable in terms of colour, flavour, taste and overall acceptability. The juice blend could be recommended to every household for its nutritional and therapeutic properties.