Sonic Seaoning

You’ve heard of seasoning your food with salt and pepper, but what about seasoning your food, or wine, with music?

That is the idea behind the concept called sonic seasoning. It has to do with how music affects the tastes and flavours of food and wine. From a marketing perspective this area of research looks at ways to enhance the wine-drinking experience of regular consumers by using music to influence their tastes and ultimately purchase decisions.

From a consumer’s perspective,  it opens up a range of possible flavour combinations and tasting experiences. Playing certain music while eating or drinking can heighten or diminish tastes, flavours and sensations.For example, different types of music pitch and rhythms are said to affect our perceptions of levels of sweetness, bitterness, or sourness of food and wine. It is believed that higher pitched songs accentuate fruit and sweet flavours in wine, and that they confer a fresher taste.

Conversely, lower tones are thought to accentuate bitter flavours in wine and to make it seem more complex.

A link between hearing and olfaction is not a novel idea. In the 1862 edition of The Art of Perfumery, French perfumerist G.W. Piesse suggested that sounds and scents are linked in the brain: "Scents, like sounds, appear to influence the olfactory nerve in certain definite degrees.” Over the years science has gotten better at investigating this theory and many studies have taken place to prove it.

Wine is not the only beverage that can be affected by music, or sounds.  For those who identify with the experience of craving tomato juice on an airplane, this is precisely what is happening. Rather than music, it is the loud, constant noise that dims the senses. German airline Lufthansa commissioned research into the popularity of tomato juice when they realised they were serving 53,000 gallons a year. They found that the loud engine noises dulls sweet flavours but intensifies the umami taste present in tomato juice. And due to the altitude, the same study found that taste and smell receptors are less sensitive, which means people enjoy the freshness of the juice without the earthy taste.

Another example of this can be found at some coffee shops in Korea, where commonly, guests are invited to choose music and coffee blends from given choices on an iPad. Later, coffee is served along with a headphone playing the selected music.

In the restaurant world, at the upper echelon of dining establishments, Chef Heston Blumenthal’s UK-based The Fat Duck restaurant offers a dish called The Sound of the Sea – this is served along with an iPod playing a soundscape of the seaside, reportedly making the food taste fresher, and heightening the overall emotional experience of eating the dish.

Music, food and wine are things that many people already enjoy. Trying them together in different combinations can make for a fascinating “scientific” experiment of your own. Something you can try at anytime with friends and family. I’ll be looking forward to hearing the results!