BBC Radio coverage

The Food Chain CIC responded to a Radio Station question on whether you could smell the sugar in tea.  Presenters on the BBC Radio York Breakfast Programme - Adam Tomlinson and Kate Walker - along with Producer Carl Wheatley, disagreed on whether you could tell if the cups of tea had sugar in them by sniffing them!  The issue was that the cups of tea were made, some with sugar in them, but then they forgot which was which.  

Relevant excerpts from the whole 6th January 2009 Breakfast show programme can be listened to here in a 7 minute, 6,646 KB, MP3 file which should open in your default music player.

The Food Chain CIC provided support to BBC Radio York and undertook some analysis of tea samples with varying amounts of sugar in them.  The analysis was performed using GC-MS which is a technique that analyses the odours above a sample - here freshly brewed tea complete with milk.  The technique is very sensitive and able to detect odours the human nose cannot and detect odours at very low levels.  The results are in the form of a fingerpint or peaks on a graph - each peak representing a different chemical.  Software analysis of the data allows matching of the peaks to specific chemicals and this match can be verified by running chemical standards.

The technique has several serious applications such as use in determination of the chemical degradation of foods during shelf life.  Fats and oils for example degrade over time and with temperature to release odours as the food deteriorates.  Such shelf life studies often become necessary through re-formulations of foods such as when salt levels are reduced.  Salt reduction is generally accepted as good for the diet but salt has been used for years to help preserve foods also and so plays a vital function in shelf life.  The technique can therefore be used to help determine the chemical stability of new food formulations and is made available to the food and drink industry through the Food Chain CIC's commercial services.

So can one smell sugar in tea?  The fingerprints from the different samples when overlaid on each other and compared. They show no difference in the odour whether you have sugar in the tea or not!  Indeed, it is thought the success is more due to chance and probability.  If you sniff a cup of tea to decide if it has sugar in or not you are likely to be wrong or right - in other words you could just as well toss a coin! 

So were the BBC Radio York presenters able to detect a difference?  The relevant extracts from the broadcast, including Kate Walker attempting to detect sugar in tea by sniffing, can be listened to here - note that the ability to listen to this file will depend on your network settings and access rights and the file is just over 6MB in size.

07-01-2009