| Abstract: | Panellists tasted sucrose solutions mixed with the enhancermaltol at concentrations of 50, 100 and 200 p.p.m. Nose-clipswere worn to prevent the identification of the maltol by itssmell. At these levels maltol is reported to enhance sweetness.In the present study these concentractions of maltol did notsignificantly enhance the intensity or persistence of the sweetnessof sucrose. In another experiment, panellists tasted solutionsof 5% sucrose mixed with 312 p.p.m. maltol. Tastings were performedwith and without the panellists wearing nose-clips. The smellof the maltol did not confuse trained panellists into believingthat the mixture of sucrose and maltol tasted sweeter than sucrosealone. However, in another experiment when both smell and tastewere assessed, untrained panellists found that a sucrose-maltolsolution possessed an overall greater sweetness than an equivalentconcentration of sucrose. That is, if panellists concentrateonly on taste then maltol does not appear to enhance sweetnesswhereas if od our and smell are assessed then maltol was foundto elevate total sweetness intensity. Triangle tests were performed to determine whether lemonadedrinks containing 15 p.p.m. maltol were perceptually differentfrom the original lemonade drink containing no maltol. No significantdifference was found between the two lemonades and it was concludedthat the addition of a sub-threshold concentration of maltoldid not significantly affect the taste of lemonade drinks. |
