Is there any way to empirically measure flavor?

Factual Questions
1

I have recently read about how some people add a pinch of salt to the grounds when brewing coffee. I’ve tried it, and it may taste better. But I can’t really be certain.

This, of course, led me to wonder whether there’s any way to scientifically measure the difference between the flavor with salt and the flavor w/o salt. Or measure any other flavor, for that matter. Can flavor be distilled to a number or chart?

2

Scoville Units are pretty empirical but someone will have to take on the salt in coffee thing. I know lots of chefs put salt in chocolate as well.

3

Scoville units were the first thing that came to mind when I saw this question; obviously similar methods could be employed for any chemical present in food that gives it the flavor under examination. I wonder if anyone ever considered making the Scoville the standard unit of flavor?

4

The Scoville scale is really to measure the “heat” of peppers.

I know of the Brix scale, which is used to measure the sweetness (sugar content) in stuff like wines and other beverages, candy, etc.

Any scale to objectively measure a particular flavor would necessarily involve measuring the chemical component of that flavor. The Scoville scale measures the capsaicin content of peppers (which is what makes them hot) and the Brix scale measures sugar content. There might be a scale to measure saltiness based on salt content, and so forth.

Robin

5

There are sweet scales, sour scales, salty scales, and heat scales.

You can measure the output of foods with these ‘scales’.

Actually, since the tongue can only taste on these scales (am I missing one?) they are all that go into taste.

6

I seem to remember the bitterness scale, although that may have less to do with the taste of food as with my personal relationship history.

7

Except that a lot of what we call taste is really smell. Also, mouthfeel is an integral part of taste. So simple scales like those would not be able to capture the full nuances of taste.

8

Don’t forget Umamé - but as Shalmanese says, aroma receptors that are also responsible for the sense of smell are vitally important to the perception of taste.