Psychophysical evaluation of interactive effects between sweeteners and aroma compounds

<p>The presence of intense sweeteners in a light soft drink influences the preferences for, and the flavour profiles of these drinks to various extents, depending on the aroma and sweeteners present. In this study equisweet mixtures of sweeteners were composed at 10% Sucrose Equivalent Value. The sucrose/maltitol and sucrose/aspartame mixtures were additive, whereas equisweet binary sucrose/Na-cyclamate mixtures and ternary sucrose/aspartame/Na-cyclamate mixtures revealed synergistic effects.</p><p>The synergy observed for the ternary mixture was a linear combination of the synergy of the binary mixtures. Sensory analysis (quantitative descriptive analysis) of different solutions containing sweetener mixtures and a water soluble orange aroma revealed that aspartame and Na-cyclamate both differed from sucrose on the attributes chemical and aftertaste. The addition of orange aroma levelled out the differences observed between the sweetener solutions.</p><p>Instrumental analysis revealed that high sucrose concentrations changed the release of the volatile compounds, while Na-cyclamate did not show this effect. Modelling of volatile release showed that the gas/solution partition coefficient and the mass transfer coefficient are the main factors influencing the release.</p&gt