# Physics/anatomy of drinking through a straw? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** food-cooking\ **Created:** [October 15, 2022, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/physics-anatomy-of-drinking-through-a-straw/973303 "2022-10-15T20:42:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![am77494](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2022, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/physics-anatomy-of-drinking-through-a-straw/973303/1 "2022-10-15T20:42:45Z")
What makes drinking through a straw so satisfying for some beverages ? For me these beverages are Coca Cola Products, Milkshakes, ice tea etc. At the same time other beverages like beer, wine or liquor are not enjoyable to drink with a straw !! Is this due to the location of certain taste buds or something anatomical about the human mouth ? I am looking for a factual answer, but please feel free to move to IMHO if necessary ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2022, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/physics-anatomy-of-drinking-through-a-straw/973303/2 "2022-10-15T20:56:57Z")
It’s mostly, if not entirely, a question of habit and custom. ---
**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2022, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/physics-anatomy-of-drinking-through-a-straw/973303/3 "2022-10-15T21:04:27Z")
If you had started drinking beer, wine, or liquor with a straw, I think you would see things differently. I know people who drink wine through a small straw, and I find it odd, but that’s how they learned how to drink it… to each his own I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2022, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/physics-anatomy-of-drinking-through-a-straw/973303/4 "2022-10-15T21:21:47Z")
I have wondered about this also. I have tried drinking coffee through a straw while driving and it is awful. Some things like malts for instance are better because we have more control over the volume, and I just like the way it enters my mouth. ---
**Author:** ![am77494](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2022, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/physics-anatomy-of-drinking-through-a-straw/973303/5 "2022-10-15T21:56:40Z")
> [@naita](#): > > It’s mostly, if not entirely, a question of habit and custom. Not really. In India, it was traditional to drink lassi (yogurt drink) and cold beverages like milk shakes / juices straight from glasses but once straws were available, many moved to using straws. ---
**Author:** ![am77494](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2022, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/physics-anatomy-of-drinking-through-a-straw/973303/6 "2022-10-15T22:01:21Z")
> [@dolphinboy](#): > > If you had started drinking beer, wine, or liquor with a straw, I think you would see things differently. I know people who drink wine through a small straw,… Some say that the senses of smell and taste are interlinked. In fact there was a recent scientific study that recommended chewing food with your mouth open, so that your nose can smell what’s in your mouth [Eat with your mouth open to make food taste better, study says | The Independent](https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/eat-mouth-open-study-food-b2128947.html?amp) So I think people will enjoy wine more without a straw Does drinking with a straw bypass the smell test perhaps !? ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2022, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/physics-anatomy-of-drinking-through-a-straw/973303/7 "2022-10-15T22:20:40Z")
> [@am77494](#): > > Some say that the senses of smell and taste are interlinked. In fact there was a recent scientific study that recommended chewing food with your mouth open, so that your nose can smell what’s in your mouth [Eat with your mouth open to make food taste better, study says | The Independent](https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/eat-mouth-open-study-food-b2128947.html?amp) > > So I think people will enjoy wine more without a straw > > Does drinking with a straw bypass the smell test perhaps !? 1. Smell and taste being interlinked is not a thing “some say”. It’s a solid scientific fact. 2. The newspaper article you link to doesn’t seem to link on to the study in question, but it seems rather dubious. The article mentions you should eat with your mouth open to enjoy the crunch, which seems … It’s a psychology study, and even large psychology studies have struggled with replication. And it seems difficult to blind. 3. You can smell what’s in your mouth even without eating with your mouth open. Your mouse and nose are connected on the inside after all. Unless you also deliberately breathe in through your mouth and out through your nose (? or vice versa) just having your mouth open shouldn’t have much to say. 4. Drinking through a straw _will_ in fact reduce the amount of aromatic compounds in the air you breath in, compared to drinking from a glass. So some elements of enjoying wine is lost. But that’s still a personal preference. Some people are perfectly happy drinking ice cold white wine through a straw. 5. None of the things people enjoy drinking through a straw taste _better_ through a straw. 6. Indians switching to drinking lassi with straws don’t have to mean it was better that way. It could be enjoying novelty, assuming it’s fancier that way, influence from straws being imported along with customs and beverages from other countries. For almost any hypothesis for why a particular drink is often consumed through a straw you can find drinks with similar properties that aren’t, so there is at a _minimum_ a strong aspect of “custom”. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2022, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/physics-anatomy-of-drinking-through-a-straw/973303/8 "2022-10-15T22:25:12Z")
When I was a kid a bunch of us’d drink our beer through straws to get drunker. (Less oxygen intake when imbibing through a straw, as opposed to slurping from a can / bottle.) ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2022, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/physics-anatomy-of-drinking-through-a-straw/973303/9 "2022-10-15T22:27:10Z")
One thing I can think of is that, when you drink through a straw, you’re getting the liquid from near the bottom of the cup rather than the top. That could make a difference for a drink that had ice in it, or one that wasn’t thoroughly mixed and homogenous, but I don’t know why it would matter otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![am77494](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2022, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/physics-anatomy-of-drinking-through-a-straw/973303/10 "2022-10-15T22:30:30Z")
@naita - not disagreeing with you. Trying to understand if there is any scientific explanation or is it just a preference thing. A scientific explanation could be like taste buds on the tongue are activated faster when higher velocity of fluid from a straw hits them or there are more nerves towards the back of the mouth where the fluid “hits” when drinking with a straw etc etc Looks like there have been no scientific studies on this. Is that correct ? If Freud was around, I could totally imagine what his theory would be !!! ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2022, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/physics-anatomy-of-drinking-through-a-straw/973303/11 "2022-10-15T22:38:22Z")
I like sipping coffee through a straw. I don’t usually do it, mostly because I’m not usually offered a straw with my coffee. But when i used to get little hollow stirrer straws, i always drank the coffee through them. Also, i think this belongs in IMHO, it perhaps even better, Cafe society, despite being kind of facty. I’m going to nice it. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2022, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/physics-anatomy-of-drinking-through-a-straw/973303/12 "2022-10-15T22:41:52Z")
I’ll comment that you can use a straw to deliver the liquid to different parts of your mouth, and that has a huge impact on the experience… When i drink coffee, i sip it and hold it in the front of my mouth to savor it. But when i had to drink a gallon of antifreeze for a colonoscopy, i used a long straw, shoved it to the back of my mouth, and kind of gulped through the straw to move the liquid from the straw to my throat with as little contact to my taste buds and as little time in my mouth as possible. ---
**Author:** ![dougrb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/76d3ee/32.png) [@dougrb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougrb)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2022, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/physics-anatomy-of-drinking-through-a-straw/973303/13 "2022-10-15T23:20:15Z")
The only GOOD use of a straw is a big one in a milkshake. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2022, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/physics-anatomy-of-drinking-through-a-straw/973303/14 "2022-10-15T23:31:18Z")
> [@am77494](#): > > At the same time other beverages like beer, wine or liquor are not enjoyable to drink with a straw !! Tell that to the Ancient Sumerians. (And others in the ancient Near-East.) > **[Our Oldest Known Straws Are for Beer and Are Made of Gold](https://nerdist.com/article/oldest-known-straws-identified-made-of-silver-gold-for-beer-drinking/)** > > Scientists have identified the oldest ever straw known to man. For a long time, these gold and silver beer straws were believed to be scepters. ---
**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/physics-anatomy-of-drinking-through-a-straw/973303/15 "2022-10-16T00:02:54Z")
> [@am77494](#): > > So I think people will enjoy wine more without a straw Lots of people like me have a terrible sense of smell. Just ask my wife. It’s a spectrum; some people have an excellent sense of smell, and others, not so much. Would I enjoy wine more if I could smell it better? Perhaps, but alas, I will never know. FTR, I have never used a straw for drinking wine myself. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/physics-anatomy-of-drinking-through-a-straw/973303/16 "2022-10-16T05:05:00Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > One thing I can think of is that, when you drink through a straw, you’re getting the liquid from near the bottom of the cup rather than the top. That could make a difference for a drink that had ice in it, or one that wasn’t thoroughly mixed and homogenous, but I don’t know why it would matter otherwise. Indeed, it looks like it might not matter otherwise, [evidently.](https://www.drinkwel.com/blogs/drinkwel-blog/24642369-does-drinking-through-a-straw-get-you-drunk-faster) In my only willful act of littering I will ever do, I will still blow a straw-paper missile out the window at the A + W. ETA: That last sentence could almost be sung! Maybe a couple too many syllables in the latter half. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/physics-anatomy-of-drinking-through-a-straw/973303/17 "2022-10-16T09:21:11Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > I have wondered about this also. I have tried drinking coffee through a straw while driving and it is awful. Odd, because I drink coffee through, not a straw, but those hollow stir-sticks. I prefer it over sipping through the bend and catch holes ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/physics-anatomy-of-drinking-through-a-straw/973303/18 "2022-10-16T10:36:51Z")
> [@DesertDog](#): > > Odd, because I drink coffee through, not a straw, but those hollow stir-sticks. I prefer it over sipping through the bend and catch holes Funny you say that, on reflection I have used the stir sticks like a straw also and it wasn’t bad at all. It must be the size. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/physics-anatomy-of-drinking-through-a-straw/973303/19 "2022-10-16T11:55:15Z")
Ice! And thick liquid like a milkshake. People don’t like this stuff colliding with their upper lip. Hence a straw. A straw isn’t necessary for beverages with the same viscosity as water. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/physics-anatomy-of-drinking-through-a-straw/973303/20 "2022-10-16T12:10:26Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > > [@DesertDog](#): > > > > Odd, because I drink coffee through, not a straw, but those hollow stir-sticks. I prefer it over sipping through the bend and catch holes > > Funny you say that, on reflection I have used the stir sticks like a straw also and it wasn’t bad at all. It must be the size. Using a regular straw, the coffee is too hot. The stir stick is narrow enough that the coffee cools a bit as it travels to your mouth. I prefer using the stir stick as a straw to sipping coffee. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/physics-anatomy-of-drinking-through-a-straw/973303.md?page=2)