Mouthfeel

A child bites into a watermelon, experiencing texture sensations such as juiciness

Texture refers to the physical sensations in the mouth caused by food or drink, making it distinct from taste. It is a fundamental sensory attribute which, along with taste and smell, determines the overall flavor of a food item. Texture is also sometimes referred to as mouthfeel.

It is used in many areas related to the testing and evaluating of foodstuffs, such as wine-tasting and food rheology. It is evaluated from initial perception on the palate to first bite, through chewing to swallowing and aftertaste. In wine-tasting, for example, texture is usually used with a modifier (big, sweet, tannic, chewy, etc.) to the general sensation of the wine in the mouth. Research indicates texture and mouthfeel can also influence satiety with the effect of viscosity most significant.

Texture is often related to a product's water activity—hard or crisp products having lower water activities and soft products having intermediate to high water activities.

Qualities perceived

See also

References

  1. ↑ Mouritsen, Ole G.; Styrbæk, Klavs (2017). Texture: How Texture Makes Taste. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-54324-8.
  2. 1 2 Guinard, Jean-Xavier; Mazzucchelli, Rossella (July 1996). "The sensory perception of texture and mouthfeel". Trends in Food Science & Technology. 7 (7): 213–219. doi:10.1016/0924-2244(96)10025-X.
  3. ↑ Goodwin, Lindsey (26 December 2017). "Texture Defined". The Spruce. Retrieved 14 January 2018.
  4. ↑ Dollase, Jürgen (2005). Geschmacksschule (in German). Wiesbaden, Germany: Tre Torri Verlag. ISBN 978-3-937963-20-4.
  5. ↑ Stribiţcaia, Ecaterina; Evans, Charlotte E. L.; Gibbons, Catherine; Blundell, John; Sarkar, Anwesha (2020-07-31). "Food texture influences on satiety: systematic review and meta-analysis". Scientific Reports. 10 (1): 12929. Bibcode:2020NatSR..1012929S. doi:10.1038/s41598-020-69504-y. ISSN 2045-2322. PMC 7395742. PMID 32737349.
  6. ↑ Katz, E. E.; Labuza, T. P. (March 1981). "Effect of Water Activity on the Sensory Crispness and Mechanical Deformation of Snack Food Products". Journal of Food Science. 46 (2): 403–409. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2621.1981.tb04871.x.
  7. ↑ "chewiness - Agrovoc - AGROVOC". agrovoc.fao.org. Retrieved 2026-02-10.
  8. ↑ Rosenthal, Andrew J.; Thompson, Paul (June 2021). "What is cohesiveness?-A linguistic exploration of the food texture testing literature". Journal of Texture Studies. 52 (3): 294–302. doi:10.1111/jtxs.12586. ISSN 1745-4603. PMID 33464562.
  9. ↑ Marcus, Jacqueline B. (2019). Aging, nutrition and taste: nutrition, food science and culinary perspectives for aging tastefully. London; San Diego: Academic Press. ISBN 978-0-12-813527-3. OCLC 1105931242.
  10. ↑ Agorastos, Georgios; van Halsema, Emo; Bast, Aalt; Klosse, Peter (2023-03-01). "On the importance of saliva in mouthfeel sensations". International Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science. 31 100667. doi:10.1016/j.ijgfs.2023.100667. ISSN 1878-450X.

Further reading