Probably everyone reading this is familiar with the idea that aroma is a big part of the experience of tea. It says here that scientists have devised a way to quantify the concept of one aroma being similar to another:
They claim their model actually has predictive power, which is to say, if their map declares to substances similar in odor, humans will in fact experience them as similar. And their coordinat system needs only 40 dimensions!
/Lew
Interesting, I guess I just always thought of it being subjective and not really able to be turned scientific... but I can see how it could be done. Like, I'm slightly color blind to a few shades of green/brown so I just accept that people see things differently, same for smells and tastes. Scientifically though for colors there are very specific, constant, wavelengths involved... however you could show me the findings and tell me, and while I'd believe it, I wouldn't see or experience it myself.
It's a really interesting adventure for thought though.
- Dominic
It's clear that others can sense odors that I can't- sometimes I wonder if there's some of the spectrum where I'm smell-deaf. At the same time, there are pine, cedar, and jasmine odors that I don't understand how others can take.... Toci
[snip]
I sit in on a wine-tasting class every fall... every fall there is a presentation by a researcher from Cornell University's Agricultural Experiment Station, Terry Acree. [What follows is MY summary of his research, which, of course, is deeply suspect!]
His research shows that MOST people are "smell-blind" to a large number of smell-components, creating large numbers of sets of tasters... he's talking about 40 or so different smeller profiles these days. He says that just because YOU love particular traits of given wine X doesn't mean it'll be an easy job to find others who will understand your experience.
This Cornell research highlights the subjective aspects of smell(/ taste). The article Lew sent us seems to be all about "objective" aspects of smell... but if none of us is "all-smelling," it seems this research will have little to say to us as we taste our tea.
james-henry
A bit more:
Terry Acree is obviously one of the leaders in the area of olfaction research. His research proposes new approaches, and, given time, he has shot down some of his own proposals too. I told you I hear annual updates in a wine class, and he always seems to have *new* things to say.
He's easy to Google, and one of the articles I just glanced over talks about *training* mice/people to perceive smells they wouldn't otherwise:
So-- If we can *train* ourselves to "get" certain elusive smells, maybe there *is* hope for growing our tea palates!
My warning about my interpretations of Prof. Acree's research was there for a good reason ;)
james-henry
It sounds like they've refined the "picture" of smell a bit in the last few years...the Japanese smell recorder from 2006
--Michael J. Coffey--
I think "little to say" is a bit harsh. Assuming this research is valid (big assumption!), it should be an important part of the answer to how we experience aromas. By analogy, if you were unable to distinguish blue from green, that wouldn't undermine the importance of light wavelength as an explanation of what colors you *could* tell apart.
/Lew
How is this beneficial to us?
Kevo
It's good to be able to systematize things and not just rely on the airy-fairy "subjective." Toci
the big problem i have is qualifying smells/tastes to a certain plant/ spice/fruit etc and that's from not having any "standard" sample to compare to and not having a large experience of different smells and tastes
Well, this is just a speculation, and a wildly optimistic one at that, but: maybe at some point in the future we'll be able to get an idea of what's in the package by reading the label?
For the record, I'm respiring normally, not holding my breath.
But seriously, and aside from any expectation of how this might change tea commerce, I feel that if I'm really interested in an area of life I should welcome anyone who honestly tries to understand it. That includes scientists.
/Lew
Absolutely! me2. I often feel like saying "If I was pressed, I would have to say this tea has a vaguely buttery (or almond, or ...) aroma, but at the same time there is such vast difference between " tea-almondy " and " almond-almondy " that I can't help but feel it's more deceptive (not in a malicious sense) than helpful.
I think it is possible to systematize scent profiles, but the experience of it for individuals might still largely be subjective. Still, how is this systematized profile of scent beneficial to us when it comes to tea? Being subjective is not airy-fairy, but what is unique and personal. If I were to describe that a wild grown puerh smelled like the forest in dawn, science might be able to support this description by locating the related molecules for the two smells, but how our brains perceive that description may still be quite subjective.
Kevo, revelling in his new Asus Eepc...
I prefer they invent a strip which we can smell and taste before buying the tea! :")
Kevo
Why bother with the tea, then?
Wait, I've got it: direct brain stimulation!
/Lew
Cool! And it hasn't hurt your ability to type, by the evidence. You got the Linux version, right?
/Lew
I'm taking a wild guess it is the 900, and not the 701, unless Kevo has pianist hands. If only they would announce the 900 with the Atom, or else the MSI Wind/ECS G10IL may be in my future. The wait is killing me. Between that and Monday's WWDC for Apple It's like Christmas morning anticipation for a geek like me. :)
- Dominic
Itz the 900 indeed Windows XP! Strange though the Linux version is pre- installed with 20GB while the XP has only 12 GB...itz not easy to type on this, but it is very light to carry around! :")
Kevo
Aroma recognition is notoriously difficult to systematize. The Weizmann Institute work is commendable for pushing our understanding a little further - but it is only "another brick in the wall" of knowledge, not the final revelation. This method my be added to the other tools we have for aroma perception, measurement, recognition and eventually understanding: spectroscopy, HPLC, electronic noses, and human noses. From the summary cited note that no perceptive aroma recognition (by a human) was involved - 250 odorants were chosen and
1,600 chemical characteristics listed for the odorants. MDA was performed on this set to map their relationships. The mapped relationships were then explained by comparison with neural response patterns to odorants previously measured in a variety of lab animals ("fruit flies to rats") - and tested by predicting the neural patterns that might be obtained from a set of new odorants.All a far cry from identify> the big problem i have is qualifying smells/tastes to a certain plant/
This skill can be improved by constant practice. However, in tea (as in may other natural systems) each aroma is a cocktail of individual volatiles in various ratios, many of which volatiles are divine in small doses and evil in large. Each aroma while being generically identifiable (for example woody) will on further analysis (by instrument or by nose) show a much wider range of specific woody aromas - cedary, sandlewood, camphor, oaky, pine, eucalyptus - and, unfortunately, various blends and mixes of them all. C'est la vie.
Nigel at Teacraft
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