Taste‐Active Maillard Reaction Products: The “Tasty” World of Nonvolatile Maillard Reaction Products

Abstract: This study was done to obtain greater insight into the structures and sensory activities of those tastants that are not present in foods per se, but are generated during food processing by Maillard‐type reactions from carbohydrates and amino acids and thus remain unknown. In order to rank the tastants according to their relative taste impact and to identify the key tastants generated during thermal food processing, the so‐called taste dilution analysis (TDA), which uses the human tongue as a biosensor for tastants, was applied to heated, intensely bitter tasting binary mixtures of glucose or xylose and proline or alanine, respectively. This screening technique led to the identification of previously unknown taste compounds, among which intensely bitter tastants such as quinizolate and homoquinizolate, a pungent‐tasting pyranopyranone, cyclopentenone derivatives exhibiting a physiological cooling effect, as well as a taste‐enhancing pyridinium betaine named alapyridaine will be presented.