Cheddar cheese taste can be reconstructed in solution using basic tastes

The taste of cheese contributes to flavour character directly and by cross-modal interactions with aroma. However, the relative contribution of specific tastes, i.e., sweet, salt, umami, sour, and bitter, is not well understood. Twelve cheeses were profiled by a trained sensory panel and the five tastes shown to significantly differ in intensity. Sucrose, NaCl, monosodium glutamate, lactic acid, and caffeine were mixed in water and adjusted using a 2^5-1 fractional factorial design (FFD) to reconstruct cheese taste; the optimised construct was compared with a Cheddar cheese to measure similarity for each taste type. The FFD provided knowledge of taste-taste interactions and aided the reconstruction of the taste profile of Cheddar cheese in solution. The reconstructed cheese solution did not significantly differ in overall intensity, saltiness, sourness, umami, and bitterness from the Cheddar cheese based on chi-squared tests. Sweetness was a difficult attribute to adjust due to its relatively low intensity.