The Effect of Macrocyclic Musk on Flavor Blending in a Model Tea Beverage System.

摘要

This dissertation describes and evaluates the hypothesis that a class of flavor compounds that are mammalian pheromones, macrocyclic musks, induce flavor blending. At the time this dissertation was written there was minimal evidence for this phenomena in the scientific literature. The rationale for this work was based on evidence from distillers, flavorists, and perfumers. Two experiments were carried out to provide evidence for this hypothesis in a model tea system.;The first experiment evaluated the effect of a natural source of musk, civet absolute, on abstract flavor characteristics of flavored teas with varying degree of complexity. It was found that at a sub-identification threshold civet absolute reduced the complexity of a high-complexity tea to be more like a moderate-complexity tea; this concentration had no such effect on the overall psychophysical intensity of the flavoring blend. When civet absolute was over its identification threshold this reduction of complexity was not present. The second experiment evaluated the effect of a sub-threshold macrocyclic musk, o-pentadecanolide, on the identification rate of individual flavor compounds in a flavored tea. It was found that the presence of o-pentadecanolide decreased the false positive detection rate. It is proposed that that the effects that were observed in the two experiments characterize macrocyclic musk induced flavor blending. A proposed term for this type of blending is "elemental smoothing".;In addition, a psychophysical theory for why macrocyclic musk induces blending is described and a number of new approaches for sensory measurement of flavor have been developed. These methods include a Bayesian approach to panelist accuracy using a Thurstonian model, a probabilistic approach for experiential flavor perception, and rank-rating method for abstract flavor characteristics.