Beverages

Cereal-derived ingredients offer one approach to diversifying fermented dairy beverages, yet their incorporation into skim goat milk systems remains insufficiently characterized. This exploratory study characterized four fermented skim goat milk formulations, each represented by a single production batch: a millet-free control (C), O1 containing sprouted millet dried at 38 °C, O2 containing sprouted millet subjected to wok thermal treatment, and O3 containing a commercially processed non-sprouted millet ingredient. The millet ingredients were incorporated after fermentation at an addition rate of 10 g per 100 mL of fermented milk base. Physicochemical characteristics, rheological profiles, microbial counts, and volatile profiles were determined, with HS-SPME-GC-MS used for volatile analysis. Moisture content was 92.1% in C and 80.9–83.8% in the millet-containing formulations, whereas water activity remained high and varied only slightly, from 0.9945 to 0.9971. The recorded rheological profiles displayed shear-thinning behavior; however, substantial technical variability occurred in the low-shear region and these observations were not used to establish formulation-specific rheological advantages. Presumptive streptococci were present at 7.43–8.08 log CFU/mL and lactobacilli at 8.08–8.39 log CFU/mL. In the analyzed batches, O1 showed the highest normalized relative peak areas of tentatively assigned 2,3-butanedione (18.66%) and nonanal (9.58%), whereas O2 showed the highest normalized relative peak areas of tentatively assigned octanoic acid (25.77%) and decanoic acid (22.20%). The four formulations displayed different batch-specific analytical profiles. Because each formulation was produced as a single batch, the observations cannot be interpreted as reproducible treatment effects and require confirmation using independently produced batches.

This review presents the scientific and technical aspects of mead production, focusing on honey characterization, medieval and modern mead production and sensory profiles. It highlights the challenges and potential opportunities for optimization of mead production, emphasizing the need for further research into honey’s chemical properties and their influence on mead’s sensory attributes. However, the bioactive profile, aroma composition (flavor), taste, health-promoting properties and overall quality of alcoholic mead composition have been scarcely studied. Moreover, this review also covers the characterization of the production process for low-alcohol mead and studies related to the sensory evaluation of mead. The study concludes that understanding these constituents and technological steps is crucial for enhancing mead quality and consumer appeal.

Franchise coffee shops now offer an increasingly diverse beverage portfolio with substantial variation in nutritional composition. However, cross-brand comparisons remain difficult because products are commonly organized according to proprietary menu names and marketing concepts rather than standardized nutritional attributes. This study developed and applied a standardized beverage classification framework based primarily on beverage ingredients and preparation characteristics to examine nutritional variation both within and across beverage categories. Nutritional information for 3586 beverages from 31 major franchise coffee brands was obtained from official websites. Beverages were systematically assigned to 10 standardized categories according to their ingredients and preparation methods. Serving size and per-serving contents of energy, total sugar, protein, saturated fat, sodium, and caffeine were analyzed and compared across beverage categories and between matched hot and iced products. All nutritional variables differed significantly among beverage categories (all p < 0.001). However, substantial within-category variability was also observed. For example, total sugar content among coffee beverages ranged from 13.0 g/serving at the 25th percentile to 48.0 g/serving at the 90th percentile. The findings demonstrate substantial nutritional variation both between and within standardized beverage categories, indicating that beverages sharing similar ingredient and preparation characteristics do not necessarily have similar nutritional profiles. The proposed framework provides a transparent and reproducible taxonomy for organizing heterogeneous beverage products across brands and may facilitate nutritional surveillance and comparative research.