Acquiring good taste is possible through Penn State's Food Science Sensory Laboratory, which uses humans, rather than machines, to test the tastes of different foods.

"Our goal is to determine how a food process such as adding in an ingredient or the packaging changes the flavor," said Ruth Hollender, senior instructor of food science and coordinator of the sensory lab. "What does it taste like and will people like it? You cannot just analyze the percentage of sugars in the food to see how sweet it is. Once the food gets into people's mouths, other flavors influence the perception."

Flavor is a combination of the sense of taste and smell combined, Hollender said. The tongue can only taste sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami, which is a broth-like taste. The nose senses the aromatics such as the scents of chocolate, vanilla and coffee.

Many flavors and sensations are part of the experience of eating food.

"More than one thing happens when food goes in the mouth," said Rajesh Potineni (graduate-food science). In order to identify a particular characteristic, such as sweetness or sourness, you need to know what each characteristic is, he said.

"A child doesn't know that something is red until you tell them what red looks like," Hollender said.

The lab runs two types of tasting panels: one with consumers and the other with trained panelists.

The consumer taste test is similar to sampling at a grocery store, Hollender said. People try some of the product, say their personal opinion of whether they like it or not and answer a few questions about some of its characteristics. People who tend to use the product often are usually selected for the consumer panels.

However, since not everyone's idea of sweet is the same, consumer taste tests are not very accurate in rating different aspects. For example, in a soda taste test, one person who is sensitive to sweetness may think that the soda is very sweet, while another person who is used to a lot of sweetness will think that it is just average, Hollender said.

The trained panel is much more controlled and its objective is to create a taste profile. For each panel, five to 10 training sessions are needed, Potineni said. The panelists are paid for their work.

"The trained panel is very different," Hollender said. "We don't care if they like it or not, we need them to analyze it."

The panelists are trained with references so that they all have a standard on a 15-point scale, she said. They are given examples of the attribute that they are analyzing in varying intensities. They then compare their own perception to the fixed reference. They are also given examples of notes, like a caramel note in chocolate.

For instance, in the case of sweetness, a 5-percent sugar solution would be given as an example of sweetness on the low end of the scale, she said. Then, as the panelists taste samples, they refer to that standard.

"If you are not trained, you may not know how to describe it or describe it so that 10 other people can understand," Potineni said. "In the case of gum, it takes a long time to distinguish between warm, cold, prickly and burn."

Other controls in the test include randomizing the presentation of the foods, using scales that have do not have any associated meaning and putting the panelists in separate booths so that they are not influenced by other people's comments or facial expressions, Hollender said.

Occasionally, some foods such as chewing gum or hot peppers have flavors that stay on the tongue and influence the results of other tests. The panelists rinse their mouths out with water or diluted apple juice and wait ten minutes before testing another food, she said.

In each different food, there are different aspects that need to be analyzed, Potineni said. A panelist needs to be trained for every test to identify the new features.

Chocolate would need to be analyzed for sweetness, bitterness, acidity and chocolate flavor, while apples would be analyzed for texture, juiciness and toughness of skin.

Some taste tests done in the past include orange juice, apples, chocolate, iced tea, milk, chewing gum and ice cream, Potineni said.

Some people are born with more taste buds and a better ability to discriminate different tastes, Hollender said.

"For some people it's easier to pick up certain attributes," Erin Matthews (senior-food science) said. "For me it takes longer to pick up bitter, so it can be extremely difficult."

Even people who do not have an extraordinary sense of taste can often be trained to improve their discrimination of tastes, Hollender said.

"It's not surprising since some people have a better ability to hear notes and see color," Hollender said. "Consumers have a wide range of sensitivity, too."

Companies need to consider this diversity when making their products, Matthews said.

"There is a huge variability in humans that you need to account for," she said. "Humans may pick up different things that machines may not. Sensory labs tell companies what consumers like, who they should market it to and what they can improve on."