Organoleptic (Sensory) Assessment of Botanical Ingredients WITH ROY UPTON
Traditional Techniques for Herb Identity and Quality Evaluation with Roy Upton
October 23, 2026 • 1:00pm PST/4:00pm EST
Sensory assessment has been the primary means for identifying and determining the quality and relative purity of medicinal plant ingredients throughout most of history of herbal medicine.
The advent of chemistry and more recently, genetics, has supplanted traditional organoleptic techniques. However, whereas organoleptic techniques are directly evaluating the plant itself, chemistry is only a surrogate for the material, such as particular marker compound to be identified. Genetics is a powerful tool for plant identification and presence of foreign organic material, but can give no indication of plant part or quality. Sensory evaluation remains one of the most important techniques for herb quality control and it is among the most rapid, cost-effective, and environmentally sustainable. The primary goal of this class is to provide the scientific basis for the legitimacy of organoleptic assessment and to present a step by step process for conducting an organoleptic assessment in a scientifically valid way, specifically as part of meeting the requirements off herbal supplement Good Manufacturing Practices.
Roy Upton has been working professionally as an herbalist since 1981. He is the president of the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia, co-founder and past president of the American Herbalists Guild, and is trained in Ayurvedic, Chinese, and Western herbal traditions. Roy is a specialist in herbal medicine quality control, an internationally respected lecturer, and avid writer with more than 60 academic publications. He is a visiting faculty of the Universities in California, Arizona, Iran, and China, and is a member of numerous expert advisory and review committees.