IT SWALLOWS, breathes, salivates and knocks back fizzy drinks like there’s no tomorrow. No, not some cola-crazed teenager, but the latest weapon in food chemistry: the artificial throat.
Developing the flavour of a new sports or low-carbohydrate drink is a lengthy task, involving many tests by panels of human tasters. The artificial throat was developed to spare drinks makers the expense and hassle involved in organising and analysing hundreds of tests by helping to predict how a drink will taste. It works by mimicking the process of human tasting.
Taste is mostly smell. The tongue’s taste receptors identify only the…
