Most people can teach themselves to develop their chemical senses (smell and taste) with practice. The first step is to get to know your own sensory apparatus. What are your strengths and weaknesses when it comes to tasting and sensory analysis of food/drink? In addition to that, the course will discuss sensory training strategies that actually work. We will also going to understand how our genetics and physiology can impact our sensory abilities. What is a supertaster? Does the time of the day affect people’s sensitivity to basic tastes? Does oral hygiene impact on people’s sensitivity to basic tastes? How can language and sensory references help us improving aroma and flavour notes description?

The course is composed of two live sessions:

• Theoretical session (2h): presentation and discussion of the main concepts and scientific investigations of the topics mentioned above.
• Applied mentorship session (3h): a series of sensory exercises on individual sensitivity to basic tastes; discrimination of different organic acids; discrimination of different types of mouthfeel; demonstration of the crossmodal effect of smell on coffee basic tastes and mouthfeel perception. *Includes a Sensory Kit

INSTRUCTOR:

Fabiana Carvalho, PhD

Fabiana Carvalho is a Brazilian neuroscientist who received her MSc in Biochemistry and her PhD in Psychobiology studying neural processes of perception and memory. She has also worked as a postdoctoral researcher on a project investigating sensory perception as an anticipatory and constructive process instead of a mere passive and reactive process.

She is currently a collaborating researcher at the University of Campinas, Brazil. Her research project “The Coffee Sensorium” is focused on understanding multisensory flavour perception, particularly the influence of extrinsic factors (that is, ambiance) on the expectation and perception of flavour in specialty coffee. This research project has been conducted in collaboration with Prof Charles Spence at University of Oxford, UK.