Strategies for Great-Tasting Beverages

These are bullish days for beverages. Sales are booming, and the category is on an expansionary tear with near-daily introductions of clever new concepts. But even a casual inventory of the beverage shelves leaves no doubt: Portability, functionality and simple hydration are all well and good, but as with everything else in the world of food and drink, taste trumps all.

Dont be fooled by the unpretentiousness of beverages, says Michelle Hagen, flavorist, Givaudan Flavors, Cincinnati. Although unassuming, they have many challenges. Knowing the right questions to ask and the right flavors to use makes quick work of those challengesand makes formulations delicious in the process.

Twenty questions

Why are beverages such formidable formulations tests? Chalk it up to their dynamism both as chemical media and product category. The beverage segment is a rapidly changing area today, says Aaron Dow, beverage scientist, FONA International Inc., Geneva, IL. Consumers are expecting the latest and greatest in flavors and functional ingredients. Often, this means that developers have to get acquainted with a wide variety of materials and taste profiles in a brief period of time. We also want more from our beverages. Vitamins, proteins, mood enhancers, nutritional supplements: All are coming from beverages today, he says. But, regardless of how many good-for-you ingredients are included, the taste still has to be great for consumers to purchase these products.

Getting all those componentsflavors includedto play nicely together can be tough, says Scott Rayburn, beverage applications manager, Cargill Flavor Systems, Minneapolis. Water is the universal solvent, as well as an excellent carrier for spoilage organisms, he notes. Surface area in a fluid, which is shifting, also allows for more enzyme-based reactions, including browning, fading and oxidation. The requirements to safely preserve products in this arenaheating, chemical preservatives and acidityalso can create flavoring challenges, as these treatments can modify the flavor profiles.

So, before any development begins, beverage teams should consult their flavor suppliers to iron out the basics of what theyre trying to flavorand how. All the experts have their top-10or maybe even top-20questions they raise with clients. What is the objective? What is the end product? Do you have a niche in the marketplace? Is there a gold standard or a target product that you want to match? asks Laura Ennis, senior beverage innovation technologist, David Michael & Co., Inc., Philadelphia. We need to understand the exact process. Cold-filled, hot-filled, UHT, aseptic, retort. As for ingredients, she asks: Are there nutritional standards that you want to meet? Claims you wish to make? How do you want the product to be labeled? Do you want to use artificial or natural flavors or colors? What flavor type are you looking for: A ripe strawberry? A candied strawberry? Do you want to use a certain percentage of fruit juice? A characterizing fruit juice?

Paulette Kerner, director of marketing, Virginia Dare, Brooklyn, NY, asks whether its going to be a dry or powdered beverage, or whether its going to contain alcohol or not. And you also need to discuss what the market price is and how much wiggle room you have. What kind of packaging are you going to put it in? A bottle? Is it a can? Is it going to be a concentrate? You have to go through all the details of the customers plans for what they want their product to be.

Base camp

This all helps establish a beverages base, and how that base influences flavor choice and delivery. Every type of beverage genre contains its own challenges, says Andy De-Rosal, beverage applications team leader, Cargill. One has to consider flavors that work well in the desired base and set expectations to meet the limitations of the base.

Each flavorist has a unique strategy for doing this. My creative approach differs depending on the beverage category, says Hagen. I like to think in terms of taste compatibility. Take strawberry, for example. A creamy strawberry profile displays synergistically with the dairy components of soymilk. For juices, I like to create true-to-fruit, fresh strawberry flavors that mimic true strawberry juice. Flavors created for sodas tend to be sweeter and even candy-like. And for isotonics, strawberry flavors need to be hydrating, balanced and gulpable.

Why the creamy strawberry in milky applications, while juices and sodas get sharper notes? It boils down to simple pH. The fact that clear, refreshing beverages are often fruit-flavored, whereas thicker, shake-type styles commonly have vanilla, chocolate and coffee-type profiles is a result of a beverages pH and its effect on our human associations and expectations, says John Fishel, beverage technologist, FONA International Inc., Geneva, IL. Clear and refreshing beverages typically contain some amount of acid and, thus, work well with fruit-type flavors, as fruits almost always contain some type of acid in their natural form. A neutral-pH, dairy-based drink, by contrast, suggests a smooth, rounded profile. But its not a hard and fast rule, says Fishel, noting that a flavor such as key lime, while uncommon, doesnt seem that out of place in a milkshake-type application.

Sometimes a beverage base starts out with challenges, like soymilk, which is notorious for its beaniness, chalkiness, astringency and bitter aftertaste. You have a lot of flavoring work to do, basically, to get to a neutral base, says Ari Gastman, flavorist, Virginia Dare.

Whats more, soys native green notes can prevent certain flavors that themselves contain significant fresh, green notes from being successful, Fishel adds.

The fat in soy, dairy, grain and nut beverages also necessitates a higher flavor load, according to Peggy Pellichero, project leader, dairy applications, David Michael & Co., because fat sits on flavors, lowering their impact, she says. Fat also coats the tongue, so the taster may not perceive the flavor as well. Thats why you need to use flavor at a higher rate in these beverages.(A higher flavor load is also in order for alcoholic beverages, to compensate for alcohols characteristic burn.)

Sodas, isotonics and clear beverages present other complications. Isotonics have the salt taste common to sports beverages, De-Rosal says, and clear beverages are limited in the amount of citrus oils that are used due to stability and hazeespecially when you consider that because the product is clear it will most likely be in plastic or glass so that the consumer can see the product. Light-permitting packages subjects flavors to UV damage.

Form follows function

Perhaps nothing frustrates flavorists more than functional and nutritional ingredients in beverages. Many of our current flavor efforts involve masking the undesirable tastes of functional ingredients, which have grown in popularity, Hagen says. Sweeteners, vitamins and proteins are just a few that constantly appear in beverages and must be overcome with great-tasting flavors.

In particular, Hagen indicts meal-replacement shakes: These products are usually high in proteins, are rich in vitamins and minerals, usually contain fat, and have very low levels of simple sugars. There are strong off notes to overcome. High protein levels also contribute viscosity that can alter flavor perceptions, and matrix interactions between proteins and volatile flavor compounds can lead to binding that swallows up the flavor.

Proteins can also coagulate during acidification, and heat-treatments call for heat-stable flavors that hold up under such conditions. Yet, even heat-stable flavors can develop processed notes. Time is needed to mask these flavors, Ennis says. The UHT process can create an immediate off flavorit can taste like raw eggs. The developer has to let the product sit to allow the flavor to marry with the beverage. It is critical to allocate enough time after processing to appropriately evaluate each iteration.

In meal replacements, sweet, simple flavors such as chocolates and strawberries with high intensities can help blanket the unpalatables, Hagen says.

Fishel recommends robust flavors such as chocolate, vanilla or mocha. If off notes persist, we would then turn to congruent flavors, such as adding a cream flavor on top of a neutral protein beverage, or to maskers.

What about other nutritional ingredients: vitamins, minerals, fibers? Fiber acts like starch and encapsulates or hides certain classes of chemicals, Hagen says. Fibers bind volatile flavor compounds, too, but to a much lesser degree than do proteins. She notes that some vitamins contain nitrogen molecules, so they bind flavors much like proteins.

The main complaint centers on vitamins bitterness. The perception of bitter notes derived from vitamins is most prevalent in the second half of the taste and during the aftertaste, when the sweetness intensity has been diminished, Fishel explains. In addition to a variety of bitterness maskers and blockers, supplementing a beverage with a late-peaking sweetenersucralose, for examplecan sometimes have a masking effect of its own.

Sweetness and light

Using sucralose to correct flavor imbalances might give some formulators a chuckle, as many sweeteners are blamed for knocking flavors out of balance in the first place, and for contributing bitter and metallic notes. If you look at the sugar as a bell curve, you get a nice, smooth increase in sweetness and then it goes down from there, Gastman says. The artificial sweeteners typically can be spiky in areas.

In response, flavor houses have introduced products and strategies that flavor around the drawbacks. The approach of pairing the proper flavor and level of impact with a system that is designed to mask certain undesirable tastes and aromas is the best policy, says Dow.

Regardless of the sweetener used, reducing a beverages sugar content alters not only sweetness and flavor profile, but mouthfeel, as well. Reducing the level of sweetness in a beverage reduces the length of time in which a flavor lingers, says Kimberly Carson, director, beverage solutions group, Sensient Flavors LLC, Indianapolis. The best approach to bringing a lower-sugar beverage back into balance is to use flavor modulators that replace the lost mouthfeel or sweetness in the beverage. Texturizers like gums and hydrocolloids also build back mouthfeel, while sweetness enhancers and extenders bolster a beverages sweet taste while allowing for the use of less sugar in the first place.

With knives out for high-fructose corn syrup, beverage manufacturers are on the hunt for alternatives. Natural sweeteners such as agave, turbinado sugar or molasses offer positive taste and mouthfeel attributes, Carson says. However, the challenge with these types of natural sweeteners can be cost, intensity and a brown note that does not impart a favorable taste. Additionally, it is important to choose the right flavor pairings, because fruit or citrus flavor profiles may not be the best match for these natural sweeteners. Carbonated and tea applications work very well with these types of natural sweeteners.

Trina Murray, beverage technologist, FONA, characterizes agave as bitter, grassy. Honey, she says, can have a very heavy sweetness, and stevia is very anisic and metallic. Masking flavors, in all cases, make a beneficial difference. Fruit juices are label-friendly sweetener options, as well, she says, but tend to brown during processing.

To protect and preserve

Product designers should account for the taste that chemical preservatives add to beverages. Sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate contribute what Dow calls a burn to a profile. But you cant just leave them out. In the systems where they are used, they are extremely important, he says. Due to this reality, developers are wise to balance the taste profile to reduce the impact of a sodium benzoate or potassium sorbate. How? With a nice harmony of the sweetener system, the right acids, and the appropriate level and type of flavorwhether of the primary flavor or a masking flavor designed to subdue the burn, he says.

Choosing an acid system itself is a task. Acids lower the beverage pH, Rayburn says, and lower-pH products can have increased issues with citrus and oxidation, especially in PET, which is oxygen-soluble. In higher-pH products like dairy and meal-replacement beverages, proteins can have buffering effects on acidity, he says, as well as reaction issues with acid and caramel color.

Thats why his team carefully matches acid to product. Often, some type of processing or supply issue drives acid replacement in a beverage, he says. Phosphoric acid may be the typical in cola, for instance, but natural colas lean toward citric or malic instead. You then have to play with the flavor profile and acid ratio to make the most acceptable product possible, he says.

Consider the source

Flavor technology has come a long way, Gastman says, particularly with natural and nature-identical flavors. Back in the day, if you wanted a natural orange flavor, you had to use orange oil. There really wasnt any other way to make a natural orange flavor, he recalls. Now that weve deconstructed the natural chemical fingerprint of such flavors, all those compounds are available individually and natural, so I can make a compounded orange flavor where I take each individual chemical and put it together in a way thats going to taste like orange oil, he says.

The question then becomes one of stability, consistency and flexibility. Of the wide range of flavor ingredient characteristics, stability and source are probably the most important for the product designer to consider, Fishel says. The stability of a flavors components is important, as the breakdown of a single component can unbalance an entire profile. And, because raw materials vary from year to year, so, too, can flavors. Meanwhile, the restriction to using all-natural ingredients in all-natural beverages limits formulators in their choices, as well as in solvent systems allowable, says Dana Sanza, certified flavorist, FONA. This also tends to be more expensive. Typically, the more restrictions on a flavor, the more expensive it will be.

Kimberly J. Decker, a California-based technical writer, has a B.S. in consumer food science with a minor in English from the University of California, Davis. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she enjoys eating and writing about food. You can reach her at [email protected].

Changing Taste for Beverages

The beverage market mix is shifting. According to Americas Changing Drinking Habits, a report from Mintel Oxygen, Chicago, the biggest move is away from high-calorie sodas.

Only 68% of respondents to Mintels Nov. 2008 survey said they drank regular soda in 2008, vs. 76% in 2003. During the same period, the number of diet soda drinkers grew: 7.8 million more adults reported drinking diet soda in 2008 than in 2003.

The company has also seen rapid growth in the non-soda market:

       Bottled Water: 24 million more Americans drank bottled water in 2008 than in 2003;

       Energy Drinks: Energy drink users nearly doubled from 2003 to 2008 (to 34.5 million from 17.4 million);

       Sports Drinks: 11 million adults started drinking sports drinks during this period;

       The survey found one in three adults (34%) were drinking more water and less carbonated beverages to manage weight or other health conditions, compared to 2006. Many people were also concerned about high-fructose corn syrup (16%) and artificial sweeteners (15%).

Tiny Bubbles

Flavors in a carbonated drink should be pH-stable to withstand carbonations carbonic acid. That usually points to flavors associated with acidity, like citrus. Also, once a product is carbonated, the flavor profile may change, as the carbonation may enhance more volatile notes, says Andy De-Rosal, beverage applications team leader, Cargill Flavor Systems, Minneapolis.

 Carbonation can dampen a beverages perceived sweetness, which is why a typical colaconsidered at full carbonationturns up the sweet factor, notes Laura Ennis, senior beverage innovation technologist, David Michael & Co., Inc., Philadelphia. When carbonation is present, the product developer needs to build back sweetness with sweetener, or sweetener plus a sweetness enhancer, she says. Carbonation can also produce a mouth-drying effect, and can shorten a beverages shelf life.

One thing to avoid in creating flavors for a carbonated beverage is having particulates in your flavoras in using a high percentage of solid extracts, says Michelle Hagen, flavorist, Givaudan Flavors, Cincinnati. This can cause de-carbonation and foaming issues on the bottling line. But carbonation has its benefits. It adds acidity and lift to a beverage flavor, she says. I find both of these to be positive flavor attributes, so I allow carbonation to work for my flavors, especially citrus profiles.