Abstract:

The sense of taste provides human with necessary information about the composition and quality of foods.
Humans can distinguish five basic tastes: sweet, salty, sour, bitter and savory (or umami). Interactions between taste-active
components are unavoidable due to the complex composition of food system. There are three levels of taste interactions,
including chemical interaction before precipitation of taste compounds, oral physiological interactions and central processing
during mixture identification. There are more studies on the second level of taste interactions. The interactions between
binary and temary taste compounds are complex: enhancement effect is shown when sapid compounds are mixed at low
intensity/concentration; additive effect is shown at medium intensity/concentration; suppression effect is shown at high
intensity/concentration. Furthermore, taste perception is influenced by many factors such as pH, temperature, viscosity, food
hardness and the physiological state of the subject. The studies of interactions between taste-active compounds focus more
on aspects with broad prospects, including improving beverage taste, masking medicament bitterness and developing oral
care products.

Key words: basic taste, interaction, synergy, suppression, psychophysical curve, taste perception, taste threshold