Super Taste 101: Super Charge Your Palate

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MARIE WRIGHT
- Flavour educator & writer (“Elegant
Flavors”)
- Global VP & Chief Global Flavorist,
ADM Nutrition
- President of the ADM Academy of Future
Flavorists
Professional Industry Speaker
- WFFC Board Member
#VodkaAndCaviar @vodkabeluga #BelugaVodka #TOTC2019

PHILIP DUFF
T: @philipduff
IG: @philipsduff
- Spirits educator & ontrade
consultant, Liquid Solutions
- Founder. door 74 (Amsterdam)
- Chief Genever Officer,
Old Duff Genever
- Writer, Drinks International

SUPER TASTE 101

5
THE RISE OF FOOD CULTURE

6

Peg your nose with your fingers
blocking the airway passages
Place a strawberry in your mouth and
chew for 10 seconds (experience
taste sensations such as sweetness,
acidity)
Release your fingers (experience the
aroma/flavor)
WHAT IS THE FLAVOR?

8
THE MAGIC WHOOSH!

 Smell and taste are closely linked in the
appreciation of a flavor
 Independently triggered:
Smell – Olfactory bulb, Frontal &
Temporal lobe of the brain
Taste - Gustatory, medulla in the rear
of the brain
Limbic System
Odour
generated
feelings,
memories,
association
s
Interaction of
molecules with
receptors
FLAVOR PERCEPTION

ODOR PERCEPTION
• Buck and Axel earned a Nobel prize (2004) on their
work on smell
• Identified 1000 genes in mice that give rise to an
equivalent number of odorant receptors
• Each receptor cell has one type of odorant
receptor
• Each receptor can detect a limited number of odor
molecules
• Messages are sent to the olfactory bulb where
further messages are sent to other parts of the
brain and the brain recognizes a pattern and hence
identifies the aroma
• Zozuluya et al identified 347 human odorant receptors
in the early 2000’s . Since then 800 have been identified
but only half are functional

ODOR PERCEPTION
Current thinking on odor perception shifts between a number of
theories
• Turin’s Vibration Theory – simplistically every molecule generates a
vibrational frequency that the nose detects as a particular smell
• Moncrieff’s Stereo-chemical theory
– Sometimes referred to as the lock and key theory
– Odor is dependent on the shape of the molecule and how it fits
into a receptor and activates it
• Odotope theory
– a combination of activated receptors is responsible for any one
smell
– Receptors recognize only small structural features on each
molecule, and the brain is responsible for processing the
combined signal into an interpreted smell.

NO NOSE!
Anosmia is the inability to smell certain aromas
One in 3 people can not smell Musk which is a key
component of many perfumes!
Parosmia is an abnormality where the brain cannot
properly identify an aroma and most often the detected
odor smells extremely unpleasant (chemical, faeces, rotting
flesh)
Phantosmia – olfactory hallucinations that appear in the
absence of an aroma and are often again unpleasant!

HOW DO WE DESCRIBE SMELL AND
TASTE?
There are over 40,000 aroma components
identified in plants, foods
Most display multiple characteristics
How we describe and speak to flavor has
always been a challenge
Words like Chemical, artificial, fresh are all
ambiguous

The lifecycle of the
association
What does it remind
you of?
ASSOCIATION
PROCESS
Describes the product in
detail and relates to the
olfactory impression
The non-olfactory or
gustatory factor
EFFECT
DESCRIPTOR
The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms.”
― Socrates
FLAVOR LANGUAGE DESCRIPTIVE PROCESS

PROVOKING AN EMOTIONAL
RESPONCE

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RESPONCE
• Aroma triggers a memory and/or an emotion by
activating the olfactory pathways leading to the limbic
system
• Neurotransmitters when released affect the brain and
influence our physical, mental and emotional states
• Strongest interconnections in the brain are made
between birth-10 years
• Strongest memories of aroma relate to early childhood

RESPONCE
• A Good wine or cheese activates many
odorant receptors and leaves a positive
memory
• A bad food or scent experience will leave a
lingering salty memory that may last forever!

Smell the aroma on the blotter.
How does it make you feel?
Choose the response that most resonates.

“I have the simplest tastes –
I am always satisfied with the best.”
Oscar Wilde

Inessential
LUXURY IS…

Inessential
Desirable
LUXURY IS…

LUXURY IS…
Inessential
Desirable
Difficult, or
expensive, to obtain

BELUGA VODKA
MARIINSK
DISTILLERY

30 45 90
Resting period
(days): 60
VODKA AND CAVIAR

STURGEON TAXONOMY

THE STURGEON
Can live to 120+ years
Can grow to 1573 kg (1.7 tons) and 7+ feet long.

CAVIAR
- Malossol: 3-5% salt added after
washing and sieving
- 1876: Germany fished out
- 1925: USA fished out
- 1991: End of USSR, Caspian Sea
sturgeon populations start
collapsing
- 2019: 85% of all sturgeon are
endangered
Inessential
Desirable
Expensive/Difficult to obtain

BOWFIN– NORTH AMERICA’S
PREHISTORIC
- Amia calva, not a sturgeon, grows to 22lbs (10kg) , 28 inches long
and to about 10 years old. Caviar known as “Choupique caviar”.

THE CAVIAR – SIBERIAN
STURGEON
- Acipenser baerii, Siberian sturgeon, grows to 143lbs (65kg) , 6
feet (2 meters) long and to about 60 years old

THE CAVIAR – STERLET
STURGEON
- Acipenser ruthenus, Sterlet , grows to 35lbs (16kg), 3 feet (1 meter),
and about 25 years old.
- Small, delicate eggs, often sold as “Imperial”, “sevruga” or the rare
albino

Super Taste 101: Super Charge Your Palate

Super Taste 101: Super Charge Your Palate

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