Tomato juice tastes better in the air

Tomato juice is a love it or hate it invention. But if you hate it, have you tried it while airbourne?

Scientists (no, really) have revealed that the red stuff tastes better when flying. The study by German boffins revealed that of 1,000 passengers, 27 percent ordered tomato juice when flying.

Yet 23 per cent of those who drank tomato juice said they would never have it on the ground, and tend to ‘suddenly like the taste when in a plane’.

Andrea Burdack-Freitag, an aroma chemist at the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics in Holzkirchen, Bavaria, has conducted a number of experiments for Lufthansa to help them improve in-flight menus.

“In the air, food and drink tastes as it does when we have a cold,” she says. The reduced pressure in a plane cabin when it is in the air affects the way in which tastes are experienced, the scientist explains.

Burdack-Freitag has found that sugar and salt are less intensely perceived in high altitudes.

“Tomato juice scores clearly lower at normal pressure than at low pressure. It is described as earthy and musty (when at normal pressure),” according to Burdack-Freitag.

“Under cabin pressure in contrast, it is described as pleasantly fruity in its aroma, and with a sweet, cooling taste impression.”

Via: The Local

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Image: Rex Compostion