Taste Interactions between Sweetness of Sucrose and Sourness of Citric and Tartaric Acid among Chinese and Danish Consumers

Tastes interact in almost every consumed food or beverage, yet many aspects of interactions, such as sweet-sour interactions, are not well understood. This study investigated the interaction between sweetness from sucrose and sourness from citric and tartaric acid, respectively. A cross-cultural consumer study was conducted in China (n = 120) and Denmark (n = 139), respectively. Participants evaluated six aqueous samples with no addition (control), sucrose, citric acid, tartaric acid, or a mixture of sucrose and citric acid or sucrose and tartaric acid. No significant difference was found between citric acid and tartaric acid in the suppression of sweetness intensity ratings of sucrose. Further, sucrose suppressed sourness intensity ratings of citric acid and tartaric acid similarly. Culture did not impact the suppression of sweetness intensity ratings of citric or tartaric acid, whereas it did influence sourness intensity ratings. While the Danish consumers showed similar suppression of sourness by both acids, the Chinese consumers were more susceptible towards the sourness suppression caused by sucrose in the tartaric acid-sucrose mixture compared to the citric acid-sucrose mixture. Agglomerative hierarchical cluster analysis revealed clusters of consumers with significant differences in sweetness intensity ratings and sourness intensity ratings. These results indicate that individual differences in taste perception might affect perception of sweet-sour taste interactions, at least in aqueous solutions.