Probably everyone reading this is familiar with the idea that aroma is
a big part of the experience of tea. It says here that scientists
have devised a way to quantify the concept of one aroma being similar
to another:

http://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/site/en/weizman.asp?pi=371&doc_id=5129

They claim their model actually has predictive power, which is to say,
if their map declares to substances similar in odor, humans will in
fact experience them as similar. And their coordinat system needs
only 40 dimensions!

/Lew

On Jun 5, 9:52 am, Lewis Perin panix.com> wrote:

On Jun 5, 8:52 am, Lewis Perin panix.com> wrote:

On Jun 5, 9:52 am, Lewis Perin panix.com> wrote:

[snip]

I sit in on a wine-tasting class every fall... every fall there is a
presentation by a researcher from Cornell University's Agricultural
Experiment Station, Terry Acree. [What follows is MY summary of his
research, which, of course, is deeply suspect!]

His research shows that MOST people are "smell-blind" to a large
number of smell-components, creating large numbers of sets of
tasters... he's talking about 40 or so different smeller profiles
these days. He says that just because YOU love particular traits of
given wine X doesn't mean it'll be an easy job to find others who will
understand your experience.

A bit more:

Terry Acree is obviously one of the leaders in the area of olfaction
research. His research proposes new approaches, and, given time, he
has shot down some of his own proposals too. I told you I hear annual
updates in a wine class, and he always seems to have *new* things to
say.

He's easy to Google, and one of the articles I just glanced over talks
about *training* mice/people to perceive smells they wouldn't
otherwise:

http://www.foodnavigator.com/news/ng.asp?id=69808-olfaction-aroma-flavour

So-- If we can *train* ourselves to "get" certain elusive smells,
maybe there *is* hope for growing our tea palates!

My warning about my interpretations of Prof. Acree's research was
there for a good reason ;)

james-henry

On Jun 5, 6:52 am, Lewis Perin panix.com> wrote:

It sounds like they've refined the "picture" of smell a bit in the
last few years...the Japanese smell recorder from 2006 (http://
science.howstuffworks.com/smell-record-news.htm) uses 96 different
compounds whereas this smell map only uses 40.

Thitherflit hws.edu> writes:

On Jun 8, 9:50 pm, "Dominic T." gmail.com> wrote:

Aroma recognition is notoriously difficult to systematize. The
Weizmann Institute work is commendable for pushing our understanding a
little further - but it is only "another brick in the wall" of
knowledge, not the final revelation. This method my be added to the
other tools we have for aroma perception, measurement, recognition and
eventually understanding: spectroscopy, HPLC, electronic noses, and
human noses. From the summary cited note that no perceptive aroma
recognition (by a human) was involved - 250 odorants were chosen and
1,600 chemical characteristics listed for the odorants. MDA was
performed on this set to map their relationships. The mapped
relationships were then explained by comparison with neural response
patterns to odorants previously measured in a variety of lab animals...