The first thing to learn about aroma chemicals is, to get the flavour right you need the concentration right!  At different concentrations aromas have different "flavours"

In some cases an aroma can be very different in the company of other aromas. Ethyl butyrate is basically fruity (in strawberry flavours) but adds to the butter note when used in toffee. Furfuryl mercaptan is mostly coffee but is found in roast beef.

A too high concentration leads to aroma fatigue in the taster and gives an artificial taste.

Aromas dispersed in water can be evaluated easier if 1 to 4% sugar is present.Importance of sugar

The second lesson is that each chemical has a different strenght so in a mixture the minor components often contribute the most. Look at and compare the flavour thresholds. Flavour components thresholds

If the aroma chemical can have an optical isomer then you must pick the right one. (Chiral compounds in nature) Some aroma chemicals are not pure and in fact are mixtures of isomers (citral = neral + geranial) Some even have traces of contaminants that dominate their profile.

Aroma chemicals isolated from a natural source are often better than from a pure chemical process.

This first table was not produced by me and I have no idea who the author was (probably from Japan) but as it was produced some 20 + years ago its brillant!

 It's title is What is Delicious

Flavour  =  Taste + Aroma

Basic Tastes  = Salt, Sweet, Sour,  bitter,  Umami and Fat

Irritants              Heat (Chilli, Pepper, Mustard)

Cooling            (Menthol)

Metallic

Aroma =       10,000 + volatile chemicals

  (*menthol, mustard, vinegar are also aroma compounds!) 

Vinegar = aroma and taste!

For a Full explaination click on this link

The Swiss Chalet flavour explaination

Aroma and Taste a great presentation!

The Flavour Pyramid

The following table gives an insight into which aroma compounds are important in which flavour.

The Chaos within flavour formulas

Having been in the industry a very long time it amazing the variation within formulas.

This variation is partly due to our difficulty in evaluating aromas in a quantative manner. In contrast we handle sugar/acid/bitterness/salt concentrations easily.

For example we are not able to tell the difference between 2 ppm and 2000 ppm of vanillin.

Natural vanilla extracts contain 10% vanilla beans which means a vanillin content of around 0.18%

There are several artificial vanillas on the market with vanillin/ethyl vanillin content equivalent to a vanillin content of 20%. The recommended dosage  is often the same as for natural vanilla! This is a massive difference in vanillin content in the finished product.

Most of the products on the market are somewhere in between these two extremes.

I have taken vanilla as the example because it is easy but when you look at other flavours you find a similar variation. Strawberry, Raspberry and other popular flavours have massive differences in formula.

This over dosing can get very complicated, as vanillin often is lost by reacting with the proteins in the food. So overdosing can be justified, sometimes.

In nature the concentration of natural aromas varies enormously too. A just ripe banana has probably ten to one hundred  times less aroma components to a ripe one.

So if you could assemble every flavour formula in the market you would find great variation.

Conclusion flavour formulas are very elastic!

Anthony Phelan

Rice flavour a review

Honey SPME

Honey more SPME aroma analysis

Honey aroma

Aromas in various honeys

Honey composition

Honey and the aroma of the flowers that contribute

Butter acids

Butter acids research

Cheese

Fat taste receptor discovery could influence food formulation

By Anthony Fletcher

11/4/2005 - The recent discovery of fat taste receptors on the tongue sheds new light on how taste buds function and could have ramifications for food makers.

Writing in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, scientist Philippe Besnard and his team from the University of Burgundy identified receptors, called CD 36, in the tongues of rodents. It is not known yet if this discovery is applicable to human tongues as well.

Experts have conventionally thought that the tongue detects five tastes - sweet, salty, sour, bitter and the savoury umami taste - but this discovery could changed the way ingredients are formulated.

For example, the salty taste is physically unique. It was recently discovered that taste receptors inside the human tongue require the shape and size of the sodium ion in order to register a salty taste, thus influencing the development of salt replacers.

In the same way therefore, the possible identification of a fat taste bud in humans – the next logical step - could help food makers develop products that satisfy consumer craving for the creamy mouthfeel and flavour that fat can give.

This would be of great interest to food makers looking to tap in on growing concerns about obesity and weight gain. In the west, about 40 per cent of all energy comes from fat consumption.

"As we gain more information regarding the function of this receptor, we may be able to devise better strategies to address the addictive potential of dietary fat," said professor Nada Abumrad of Washington University School of Medicine, writing in the in the same medical journal.

This remains to be seen however. The CD36 receptor is already known to exist in many tissues involved in fat storage, but its taste function, if it exists in humans, has not been studied. But the University of Burgundy study still represents an important breakthrough.

By knocking out the receptor in some mice so that it no longer worked, the team was able to compare the behaviour of normal mice and these ‘knock out' mice.

According to Besnard, the normal rodents showed a preference for fatty foods when offered them, yet the knock out mice did not. In addition, when the researchers put a fatty liquid onto the tongues of the normal rats, this triggered a release of fat-processing substances from the digestive organs.

This reaction did not happen in the knock out mice.

Previous research into taste has revealed that the human tongue has about 10,000 taste buds with five taste sensations: sweet, bitter, and umami, which work with a signal through a G-protein coupled receptor; salty and sour which work with ion channels.Contrary to popular understanding, taste is not experienced on different parts of the tongue. Though there are small differences in sensation, which can be measured with highly specific instruments, all taste buds, essentially clusters of 50 to 100 cells, can respond to all types of taste.

Taste buds (or lingual papillae) are small structures on the upper surface of the tongue that provide information about the taste of food being eaten.

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Flavour Tricks