Hot, cool and bubbly

In addition to being natural customers for Hasegawa’s chili-and-flavors combos, chiliheads are responsible for cranking up the heat for all of us on snacks, sauces and salsa, Mattcheck believes. “They are clearly hotter than they were a few years ago,” notes Mattcheck.

Frito-Lay's Crunchy Flamin' Hot Cheetos owe much of their punch to pepper extractives from Kalsec.

Gary Hainrihar, vice president of sales and marketing at Kalsec Corp. (www.kalsec.com), Kalamazoo, Mich., agrees that chilies are showing up in a variety of foods that never used to have the little heaters. "It's the effect of fusion cuisine and the result of expanding ethnic diversity," says Hainrihar. "People are being exposed to cuisine that, up till now, was not readily available to them. They find that they enjoy both the pungency of chilies as well as the other flavors they impart to foods.”

Kalsec suggests specific types of capsicum extracts to achieve specific effects. Extracts express pungency differently in different foods. There is the instantaneous perception of heat or bite, which may fade quickly, or there is a pungency that builds slowly to a crescendo and slowly fades.

Hainrihar also agrees that mild products have grown hotter over the past few years, and the popularity of curries, sauces and dips with added heat has increased as people have acquired a taste for pungent foods. Kalsec’s pepper extractives are responsible for Crunchy Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and other corn-based snacks.

Speaking of Frito-Lay products, “Our dips and sauces haven’t changed heat levels, but we’re shipping more of the medium and hot varieties, replacing mild versions,” observes Richard Metivier, principle scientist at Frito-Lay (www.fritolay.com), Dallas. “The gourmet sauces we evaluate are almost always hot, at the high end of the heat spectrum. You’ll see more of them.”

Metivier notes that he, too, has changed his preferences—he likes things hotter than he did a few years ago. “We keep running flavor and preference tests in various parts of the country to be sure our preferences (in Texas) aren’t biasing our judgment. But preferences are running toward the hotter, aromatic flavors.”

Keeping it cool

On the opposite side of the temperature spectrum are the cooling effects, provided by certain of the polyols, menthol (a derivative of peppermint or made synthetically, menthone) and a few proprietary compounds. By combining these materials, some intense cooling flavors have been produced, and they are reaching new levels of popularity.

One of the early companies into the fray, International Flavors and Fragrances (www.iff.com), Dayton, N.J., uses some proprietary cooling molecules that are not mint-derived. The product line, called CoolTeK, is based on a better understanding of the measurement of “coldness” in the mouth.

Sorbitol, mannitol, and maltitol, all polyols, provide the cooling sensation in Dentyne Ice’s new Arctic Chill flavor.

CoolTek initially was developed for confections in a variety of compounded flavors, such as wild berry and strawberry. Two years ago the flavors were applied to beverages, and now they are expanding into sweet flavors.

“Cooling is not a basic taste such as sweet, salty, sour, bitter or umami, nor is it an aromatic sense,” says Carol Brys, a category manager for IFF. “It is perceived as a chemical sense known as chemesthesis. In sweet applications, it is most commonly used in chewing gum, adding refreshing intensity, especially with mint flavors. In non-mint applications, it adds a fun and unexpected taste sensation along with the expected flavor.”

Cooling fits well into the "extreme" tastes enjoyed by kids, adding an exciting dimension to the taste experience. Cooling is characterized as a “sensate,” a compound that causes sensation in the mouth but is essentially without flavor, and does not interfere with other flavors in a system.

Most of the polyols, including maltitol syrup, sorbitol, mannitol, erythritol, isomalt and xylitol, provide a cooling sensation. While they are primarily used for sugar replacement, their cooling effect can be useful, either alone or to support other cooling molecules.

The “coolest” of the polyols, erythritol, provides a distinct cooling sensation; xylitol is not far behind. Both have a negative heat of solution in the range of -40 cal/g. Both erythritol and xylitol cool the mouth and fight the sensation of dry mouth commonly associated with prescription drugs and dental hygiene products.

Erythritol is a naturally occurring four-carbon structure. Xylitol is a five-carbon sugar found in fruits and vegetables and made in small amounts by the human system as a metabolic intermediate. Interestingly, bacteria that cause dental caries usually cannot metabolize polyols. There is evidence that xylitol and possibly erythritol inhibit bacterial action on sugars, making them ideal for dental hygiene products.