As a major wheat exporter to countries all over the world, the United States has to produce wheat that satisfy different quality requirements requested by their customers. Over the past decade the United States has encountered a major problem, that of losing market share in Asia to Canada and Australia. The major reason was that the United States was unable to supply Asian countries with quality wheat suitable for noodle production. To overcome the problem, the U.S. wheat industry needs to understand the specific quality requirements required for Asian noodles. Research on understanding sensory characteristics of Asian noodles was proposed to bridge the communication barrier regarding Asian noodle quality. Descriptive analysis was utilized for this study to provide sensory characteristics of noodles from different Asian countries. In the first study, four classes of U.S. wheat flour samples were evaluated for their ability to make high quality Taiwanese noodles. Taiwanese noodle industry representatives came to the United States and made 4 major types of their noodles using U.S. wheat flours; they evaluated them by employing both the Taiwanese industries' scoring system and modified descriptive analysis. The results of this study indicated that hard white wheat was suitable for making two types of Taiwanese noodles (dry and yee noodles), a blend of hard red winter and hard red spring wheat was suitable for wet noodles, and a blend of hard red winter and white wheat was suitable for fresh noodles. The second study was undertaken to better understand the texture profile of noodles from various Asian countries. Sensory texture characteristics of fresh noodles from Taiwan, Thailand, and Malaysia were identified. A total of 16 patent flour samples for Taiwan, and 18 straight grade flour samples each for Thailand and Malaysia, were milled from hard white wheat varieties and made into each Asian country's noodles. A texture profile of each country's noodles was developed by an Oregon State University descriptive panel while quality evaluation was performed by each countries' noodle experts. The results characterized the Taiwanese noodles as the smoothest, springiest, and highest in integrity of noodles; the Thai noodles were the hardest, most dense, cohesive noodles and also higher in starch between teeth and toothpull; and the Malaysian noodles were the softest, least dense, cohesive, and sticky noodles. The optimum protein to achieve specific texture quality for each country was identified. / Graduation date: 1998

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