Questions tagged [taste]
Questions related to the crude analysis of a compound by identifying its taste.
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Elemental sodium taste [closed]
I know the dangers of elemental sodium and how reactive it is particularly with contact with water, however it got me wondering would sodium metal taste bitter since it would probably make naoh upon ...
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Reduction of gingerol content in ginger using kitchen equipment
The single topic that this question focuses on is - how to remove gingerol and only gingerol from a piece of ginger in a manner that it remains safe to eat using equipment found in a well stocked ...
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How odorless is "odorless"?
Wikipedia has entries for many odorless gasses such as Ar, CO, etc. How rigorous is odor testing? Is it possible someone with a better sense of smell could smell Ar, CO, etc?
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Why do green bell peppers become bitter when cooked?
Why do green bell peppers taste sweet raw, but become bitter when cooked (steamed)?
What chemical process is responsible for this? I don't believe the temperatures are high enough for the Maillard ...
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What's the usual agent added to discourage drinking of hazardous substances
I've once read somewhere that in materials that are hazardous to swallow, a chemical is used in very small quantities to assure any accidental drinker to retch. This also helps to prevent suicide by ...
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Why do bases taste bitter? [closed]
My chemistry teacher told us that acids taste sour and bases taste bitter. After reading Do acids without hydrogen taste sour? and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taste#Sourness I learned that sourness ...
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Is there any way to chemically check sweetness level in any drink or water or tea etc?
I was wondering if there is a test or way to find out how sweet any drink is? For example, if I mix sugar in water, how can I test its level or number of sweetness?
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What's a non-toxic flavorless water-soluable chemical I could use for freezing point depression when making ice cream?
I'd like to make a savory version of ice cream. So I can't use sugar or any artificial sweeteners for the freezing point depression needed to control ice crystal sizes. What can I use?
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How is taste of chemical compounds determined?
How do we know the taste of compounds, and their smell too, when some of them are poisonous. My textbook had that Lead is sweet in taste, but it's poisonous. So, how exactly do we determine their ...
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Why does boiled water have a different taste as compared to cool water? [duplicate]
I have noticed it frequently and decided to check with some of my peers and friends about this and they too have felt such a thing.
The taste comparison occurs after the boiled water is cooled down to ...
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How do we know the taste of dangerous compounds?
For example, this site tells that the taste of Copper sulfate, (which is very dangerous for consumption) is of "metallic, nauseating taste" and as many dangerous chemical compounds often have taste ...
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How do we know if a newly developed chemical compound has any taste or is tasteless?
I was reading this about polystyrene, which says: "Polystyrene is an odorless, tasteless, rigid thermoplastic", and got hung up on "tasteless".
I searched Chemistry.SE for "tasteless" and found this ...
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Is sugar necessary for the sweetening effect of food?
A lot of food packages, nowadays, are mentioning "0 g sugar" or "sugar free". Then how do those still taste sweet?
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Why does the acid in hops make beer taste bitter?
For years, I've learned that acids taste sour and bases taste bitter. Recently, I've read in "The Beer Bible" and various beer sites that the hops in beer, which are acidic, cause beer to have a ...
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How do we know a nerve agent is tasteless?
According to the BBC, the nerve agent sarin is a tasteless liquid. How do we know that this liquid has no taste, given that anyone to have (not) tasted it in any meaningful quantity presumably died ...
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Why are polysaccharides not sweet in taste?
Polysaccharides are defined as polyhydroxy aldehyde or ketone which on hydrolysis yield many units of monosaccharides.
I got one answer(to my question above) as:
On our tongue, we have things ...
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Why does sodium bicarbonate taste salty? [duplicate]
I just made myself sodium bicarbonate solution to treat heartburn. I never did this before, I rarely suffer from this condition.
What surprised me is how salty did the solution taste. I thought there ...
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Why do many organic halogen compounds smell or taste sweet?
Is it just coincidence that many organic halogen compounds (especially chlorinated ones) tend to either taste or smell sweet? Examples include dichloromethane, vinyl chloride, chloroform, and ...
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How does alcohol keep smell and taste flavors in wine?
Nowadays alcohol free wine is also sometimes available. Now is seems that this wine has less taste and flavors in it. The cause for this is that alcohol seems to the capability to keep these flavors ...
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The "hazardousness" of artificially made sweteeners
In school I learned of the "possible hazardity of artificial sweeteners." But that was some time ago, now. I think that science should have caught up by now.
My question is as follows.
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Sweet non-toxic salts
I have recently read one post over here in chemistry exchange about tastes of ionic salts, some described lead and beryllium ones to be sweet but toxic, some my point is there any salt that is ...
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Does heavy water taste sweet?
In this YouTube video from Cody's Lab, Cody claims that heavy water tastes sweet.
He does some fairly convincing comparisons but still expresses a little doubt that the effect is real.
Has this been ...
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Is it the Na+ or the Cl- that gives table salt its taste?
What gives it that salty taste? I'm wondering if it's the $\ce{Na+}$ or the $\ce{Cl-}$. I know that $\ce{KCl}$ also tastes salty, and other salts have different flavours, but where does the saltiness ...
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pH Difference Our Taste Buds Can Recognise
Water at $50~^\circ\mathrm{C}$ has a $\mathrm{pH}$ of $6.63$, while the pH of water at $0~^\circ\mathrm{C}$ is $7.47$.
The temperatures are comparable to a chilled, iced drink (at $0~^\circ\mathrm{C}$...
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What chemicals cause the softer, less-raw taste of purified water sold in bottles?
I've seen the post, "What defines an element's taste?", but it doesn't answer my question.
I took water that is supplied by the municipality corporation and put it through a gravity based water ...
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Measuring sweetness
According to my textbook, sucralose is about 500 times sweeter than sucrose. How is this measured? Does one have to use blind taste tests, or is there a quantitative chemical way of measuring ...
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Wine tasting like soot
I'm not sure if this question is for chemistry.
I had a bottle of (cheap) wine. It had a strong taste of soot, to an extend that I suspected that in the filling process some machine oil might have ...
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Off taste of over-boiled soup, what is the chemistry?
I had a tin of Asian soup where the label explicitly states "don't boil". It happens, it did boil, and afterwards had a taste that reminded me clearly of the smell I remember from stale soap water, ...
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What chemical measurements are related to the degree of flavor extracted by alcohol?
A recent project of mine includes making infusions of various ingredients to make liqueurs and bitters. Infusions, I've learned, vary widely in the amount of flavor extracted from an ingredient. ...
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Is there such thing as too much fermentation
When you make a wine the more you age it the better the taste. But is there such a thing as too much fermentation where it makes the wine taste worse? If not is there a time where fermentation doesn't ...
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Do L-sugars (enantiomers of natural sugars) have a sweet taste?
I'm wondering about how L-sugars taste. They are obviously not digestible by humans, but what do they taste like? If they are sweet, too, why isn't sucrose with the unnatural chirality used as a zero-...
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Is there a way to experience peppers’s endorphins effects without the burning sensation?
When preparing dinner, my friend and I sometimes argue over the amount of pepper. It is often ‘too hot’ for him while I enjoy the heat effects (endorphins) of capsaicin (chili peppers) and piperine (...
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Why should space whisky taste different to Earth whisky?
I recently read an article about a vial of whisky being stored on the International Space Station for 3 years, and having its taste compared to a control sample stored on Earth.
What could cause this ...
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Does oxygenating tap water remove the tap water flavor?
I know flavor is subjective and not exactly quantifiable, but I think there's merit to this question.
We've all experienced that tap water often tastes a lot worse than bottled water or filtered ...
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Where did the description that acids are sour and bases are bitter come from?
Where did the description that acids are sour and bases are bitter come from? With Arrhenius definition, those descriptions may have fit acids and bases, but with the Lewis definition, I guess they ...
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Discrepancies between smell and taste
In my experience, most foods smell like they taste. Fragrant soaps, however, taste quite awful in comparison to their fragrances. How can some things smell and taste identical while others are so ...
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What causes that foul taste with combination of toothpaste and orange juice?
Ugh, I drank orange juice too soon after brushing my teeth and my mouth feels awful!
What causes that foul taste with this combination of toothpaste and orange juice? Is it a reaction between the oil ...
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Why does opened wine develop the sour taste and smell of vinegar?
An opened bottle of wine developed into a sour taste and smell of vinegar. Why?
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What chemicals help define "taste"?
As we all know that there are 5 tastes : sweet, sour, bitter, umami, salty.
So what chemicals are there that help form these tastes, in other words how do our tastebuds experience these tastes?
Also ...
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Which chemical reactions occur between my tongue and the food I eat?
There are various chemical reactions that can occur between materials.
Which chemical reactions occur with the tongue?
How come all reactions are reversible (nothing sticks to my tongue)?
What's ...
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Can plastic leak into water from a HDPE "2" plastic container at room temperature?
Here in USA supermarkets often sell water in plastic 1 gallon jugs. These jugs seem to all be stamped with the text "HDPE" (meaning that the material is High-density polyethylene) and a resin number ...
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What compounds exist in the bitter peel of specific fruits?
Actually, my original question was: What makes a pith of pomegranate so bitter?
Then I decided to be more generic. You'll hardly find someone that consumes pomegranate and doesn't nag about the bitter ...
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What defines an element's taste?
A useful post by @Martin indicated that probably the naming of Sweetwater town is because of the sweet tasting lead compounds in it's water.
Then my question arose. I know that the taste of any ...
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Is Sweetwater, Missouri, named due to water contamination with lead compounds?
The town of Sweetwater, Missouri is known for its mineral resources, particularly rich lead sulfide (galena) deposits. I am curious to find the origin of the name "Sweetwater" and if it has any ...
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Do all salts taste salty?
Recently, I am learning the production of soluble and insoluble salts. My friend and I have done this experiment at the school lab.
We wanted to taste them to see whether they are salty are not. The ...
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Are there any papers linking the bad taste of orange juice after toothpaste to sulfates?
Wikipedia states:
After using toothpaste, orange juice and other juices have an unpleasant taste. This effect is attributed to products of the chemical reaction between stannous fluoride in ...
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Would dissolving a salt and letting it sit for 48 hours have an effect on the solution?
If one were to dissolve magnesium citrate (about $100~\mathrm{mg}$) in water (about $70~\mathrm{ml}$) and let the solution sit for 48 hours, would the solution be exactly the same as one dissolved and ...
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Why does meltwater taste different? [duplicate]
I've noticed that water obtained from melting ice cubes (by keeping them in the open) tastes different from water cooled to the same temperature.
Furthermore, the taste goes away if you keep it in ...
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Silver and milk (or milk products)
In the title I am refering to silver spoons, which, when used to consume milk products (like yogurt), get a weird taste. It could be described as umami/meaty, a little bit like onions. I came to the ...