What is the mechanism whereby a food/drink has a “finish” distinctively different from the taste while on the tongue.
My girlfriend was drinking some sort of orange flavored drink from the Quickee Mart and it had a very pronounced “creamsicle” finish. In other words, when you’re actually drinking it, it tastes like orange drink, but when you stop drinking, a creamy flavor suddenly comes on and you get a taste like a creamsicle.
I’m wondering how the aftertaste can be different from the taste.
Most of what we think of as taste is actually smell. We only have five kinds of taste buds; everything else is based on the volatile compounds the substance gives off and that reach the nose from the inside. It may well be that when a large amount of a substance is in the mouth, it gives off a different combination of chemicals than when only a small amount is volatilizing.
The Stewarts sodas all seem to leave that creamy sensation on your tongue. I think their orange soda is actually called “Orange Creamsickle”. My guess is that they include an ingredient that leaves a residue of some sort in order to get that creaminess feeling.
There’s a thing called ‘mouthfeel’ which is a blend of texture and other effects (for example astringency) - food and drink manufacturers add thickeners, emulsifiers and other conditioning agents to their products to precisely manipulate it.
It’s surprising how much this can affect perception of taste, even when it doesn’t necessarily impart any actual difference to flavour or aroma.