Taste and flavour is the effect that we have when eating. Human uses all their five senses to develop an eating experience. Eyes to have sights of the colour and presentation of the food as it anticipate a great meal. Most of food is first judges by sight, an acceptable colour spectrum of food are usually in green, brown, yellow, red and orange. Other spectrum such as blue and violet are associated with toxic alkaloids and are usually rejected. For example, an egg should have white opaque colour on the whites and yellow to orange colour on the yolk. If we were to be served a boiled eggs that is green coloured, we will automatically hesitate to eat them as it is not the natural colour it should be.
Touching food to define the texture and temperature, further expecting the flavour interpret by the brain from past experience on familiar foods. We would expect that a main meal e.g. steak should be serve hot, is hot on the plate. If it is cold, we will reject it and spoiled our mood on eating them.
Nose to smell the aromas come from the food which further whets the appetite. Tasting with our tongue thus recognizing the bitter, sweet, salty, sour and savoury of the food, further experiencing flavour sensations from the olfactory receptor in our nose as we breathe while chewing.
Ears hearing the sound of the food makes when biting into it adds the experience of a meal. Hence, the back of tongue is important for eating as well. Once the food is all ground up and mixed with saliva, the back muscles start to work. They move and push a small bit of food along with saliva into the oesophagus, which is a food pipe that leads from the throat to stomach. Thus feeling of satisfaction or dissatisfaction is interpreted by the brains. In contrast, the sense of smell contributes greatly to the sense of taste, therefore, when people have flu or cold, their nose is blocked, as a result, food seem tasteless and a joyful of eating is disrupted. However, there is no single sense that defines flavour - although perceiving taste of food happened in the mouth, it is our brain that determines the flavour – Heston Blumenthal, The Fat Duck Restaurant (2005).

2. The sense of Taste
Taste papilla can be seen on the tongue as little red globules or raised bumps, particularly at the front of the tongue. These are actually called "fungiform" papilla, because they look like little button mushrooms. There are three other kinds of papilla, foliate, circumvallate and the non-gustatory filiform. Most of them have taste buds. Taste buds are collections of cells on these papilla and cannot be seen by the naked eye. Taste buds have very sensitive microscopic sensory cells, microvillus. Those sensory cells identify the molecules thus sending messages to the brain, deciding how the food tastes and feel. That is why when we eat or drink something too hot and burn our tongue, the papilla failed to sense any food cells to the taste buds and as a result, we taste nothing. An average adult have thousands of taste buds on the tongue surface, as it decreases as human reaches 45 years old and higher. Exactly how this work and what they respond to is still not fully understood by physicist. However, there are five basic principals of taste achieved by the taste buds on human tongue; sweet, sour, bitter, salty and savoury. Three are prominent in fruits and vegetables (sweet, sour and bitter). But in some review, it is that salt, sour, bitter and sweet is the only true taste that can be detected by human taste buds and other than that is in fact, odours/aroma. Though, an odour is detected by sensitive areas such as human nasal passage and can only be determined in a form of vapour. There are large numbers of different odours and at present, there is no satisfactory grouping of them, thus, very small amount of odour can be detected, such as burnt, fragrant etc.

Often, unripe fruits stores it sugar as tasteless starch, then converting to sugar as it ripens. Ripe fruits have 10-15% of sugar content by their actual weight. These sugar compounds that contribute sweetness to the taste buds are mainly low-molecular carbohydrates such as fructose, glucose and sucrose. Some combinations of amino acids can be very sweet. Aspartame an artificial sweetener made of phenylalanine and one aspartic acid are 200 times sweeter than sucrose. However, human have different sensitivities on sweetness, many people find fructose is sweeter than sucrose and glucose is even less sweet. So, determination of sugar level intake of a person is hardly notified. When most of fruits and vegetables are not properly ripens, they also content high in acids. Citric, malic, tartaric and oxalic are the main example of an organic acid that exist in citrus fruits, lesser extent apple, fermented products i.e. yoghurt. Therefore it gives a sour taste to the taste buds.

Bitterness is affected by food substance contained alkaloids and other chemical defences, mainly vegetables and seeds (cocoa beans, coffee, fruit seeds, quinine, etc.). Thus, many alkaloids are poisonous, which explains not many people likes bitter taste. Unlike other vegetables, chicory, radicchio, various cabbage relatives and Asian bitter gourd are loved for their bitterness. In various cultures in the world believe that bitterness is a manifestation of medicinal value. Recent studies prove a bitter cucurbitaceous found in bitter gourd may reduce the development of cancer. However, certain amino acids and ionic compounds also evoke a bitter sensation. For example, in maillard reaction or browning reactions, if food is heated more than 200°C, new complex molecules starts to appear, a carbonize effect resulting bitterness and unpleasant taste, thus sometimes become inedible. Hence, this bitterness from the burnt meat encourages a long term cancer in human body.

Saltiness is developed from a property called electrolytes which a low molecular weight ionised salts, particularly the halides such as sodium chloride (table salt). Other salt components are chlorides, bromides, iodides, sulphates and nitrates. Sodium salt is salty whereas potassium salts can be bitter and unpleasant.

The fifth taste element and most controversial is savoury or ‘umami’ comes from a Japanese word for delicious, usually associated with monosodium glutamate (MSG). This ingredient is used mainly in the Eastern cooking, commonly Chinese and Japanese gastronomy. It was founded in 1908 a by Japanese chemist, Kikunae Ikeda, Tokyo University. He discovered the taste of MSG from kombu alga/seaweed creates a meaty flavour to vegetable and soups dishes. He then named this sensation as ‘umami’ and pointed out that other foods such as meats, cheese mainly parmesan and tomatoes also provide this flavour. This is associated with some fruits and vegetables (tomatoes, oranges, seaweeds) do contain significant quantities of glutamic acid, the active portion of MSG. It was then in 1908 produced commercially by Ajinomoto Company, thus becoming the world largest MSG producer. In 1934, MSG was commercially produced across the United States of America. Beginning the late 1960s, it was blamed as ‘Chinese restaurant syndrome’. Finally in 2001, biologist Charles Zucker at the University of California, San Diego and colleagues demonstrated conclusively that humans and other animals do have a specific taste receptor for MSG, thus introducing it to the world as another main taste bud. However, many authors believe that MSG is classified as flavour modifier, not as one of human taste buds, it can only enhance and reduce level of flavour to the food. In addition, excessive consumption of MSG can cause dizziness and sickness. The defence of this statement leads to an epidemic of sickness beginning the late 1960s, which MSG was blamed as ‘Chinese restaurant syndrome’ whereby it have an effect of burning sensation on the torso, a feeling of pressure behind the forehead and eyes and chest pain suddenly strike susceptible people who begin a Chinese meal with MSG-laden soup. However, according to McGee, 2004: 342, adds that many studies by the toxicologists after late 1960s have concluded that MSG is a harmless ingredients to most people, even in large amount.

3. Flavour Interpretation
In Japanese gastronomy, the acceptance of that certain dishes have to be eaten in a certain order, so that the taste, texture and temperature lead to euphony. Flavour is a combination of taste and smell, in many cases is closely linked to ‘mouthfeel’ or the texture of the food e.g. temperature. Hence, a smooth product will taste differently from rougher on the similar product, i.e. the sweetness of confectionary may be affected by the sucrose crystal size. The brains store memories from the past experience of flavour that we had, so, the type of food and our memories of similar foods tell the key aromas and tastes to look for in a "flavour". Thus an expectation is occurred towards the food we eat; hence, the expressions of ‘We are What we Eat’, by Brillat-Savarin.
As mentioned earlier in this chapter, an actual taste and flavour comes from the nasal passage, sense of smell. However, it can detect aromas of substance when only as few as 250 molecules interact with just a few dozen cells. As a result, there is a limitation on the sensory of smell despite it is senses only as an air borne molecules. When tasting food, the olfactory receptors detect only the most volatile molecules carried by air that resulting the aromas, thus reflecting the flavour that the molecules carry.
For example, ‘durian’ fruit (Pic. 1) smells horrible for most people from the western countries. In fact, it is known by its notorious taste and vapour. They can’t even bear to eat it because it smells so foul. But for people in South East Asia, ‘durian’ is named as the "King of Fruits" and tastes delicious. It is very large (can be the size of a football), with sharp thorns on the outer skin and originated from South East Asian countries. This is associated with the Romans saying that “One Man’s Meat is Another’s Poison”.

According to Blumenthal, marmalade with pieces of orange in it has a far more powerful flavour than without the pieces. Thus, a way of looking at this theory is to make a cup of coffee with one ground bean; it will taste very insipid. Now take the same coffee cup and fill it with hot water. Place the coffee bean in this and drink the water, crunching the bean. The cup of water containing the bean will yield a much stronger coffee taste, from the same amount of coffee. In addition, experiments done by Adria, F., combination of a litre of puree or juice with a litre of cream or liquid resulting 50% flavour, however, a litre of puree or juice plus air results 100% flavour.

Event though flavours can be described effectively for everyday purposes, usually referring or relating it to other flavour (i.e. ‘it taste a bit like strawberries’), a full scientific description or analysis is virtually impossible. The subject of flavour is thus of most infinite complexity and so is that of flavourings, both natural and artificial. Nor does it have a vocabulary which would make the tasks of grappling with it easier. They cannot be fully analysed or described in words as interpreting whist tasting it. Even an attempt to classify aromas leads to immediate difficulty, i.e. ethereal, aromatic, fragrant, ambrosial, alliaceous, empyreutic, hircine, repulsive and nauseating are all typical classification categories of aroma.

Until today, physicist has not found instruments that are available which can measure the sensation of flavour as what smells and taste quite repulsive to one person may seem attractive to another. Chefs and chemists such as Harold Mcgee, Peter Barham, John Campbell, Hervé This, Nicholas Kurti, Heston Blumenthal and Ferran Adria has dedicated most of their time on studying the foundation of developing flavours. Hence, development to new flavours is an innovation to the culinary and science future chronicles.


4. Organoleptic Test
Organoleptic test is undertaken to evaluate food by the sensory methods. This is done by making blind tasting, selecting different quality in flavour and taste of products, identifying similar product in different brands, etc. Samples are prepared in white clear containers at temperature between 7 - 77°C, more or less at room temperature. It is then coded with randomly selected letters, three digit numbers, geometric shapes, colours, etc. The test is done in an environment of a well ventilated room and there should be no internal or external distraction so that the judges can concentrate. Plain water and more commonly lime cordial is used to clear the palate and is considered to be good.

Judging of food is usually done by our eyes. However, our sense of smell, touch, auditory and tongue to taste determines the whole eating experience. It seems that what we feel with our hands with closed eyes can be transferred in our brains to the tongue. The fact is that sound, texture and colour of food changes our expectations.

Taste is defined as a component of flavour. In contrast, flavour is detected by tastes plus aroma. Although, there are five basic fundamentals of taste discussed (sweet, sour, bitter, salt, umami), there are other tastes which effect our organoleptic precision, such as metallic, astringent and pungent. Although taste and flavour in our normal diets differ to different peoples background, ethnicity and religion, our conceptual taste palate could be trained to like or dislike certain food.