Sweetness is a complex physical, chemical and physiological process produced by sweetener molecules to stimulate taste buds. The level of sweetness is called sweetness, which is an important indicator of sweeteners. The sweetness cannot be quantitatively measured by physical or chemical methods, and can only be judged by the senses based on people's sense of taste. In order to compare the sweetness of sweeteners, sucrose is generally selected as the standard, and the sweetness of other sweeteners is the relative sweetness obtained by comparison with it. There are two methods for determining relative sweetness: one is to formulate the sweetener to the lowest concentration at which sweetness can be felt, called the limit concentration method; the other is to formulate the sweetener into a solution with the same concentration as sucrose , And then compare the sweetness of the sweetener with sucrose solution as the standard, which is called the relative sweetness method [3].
Relative sweetness of various sweeteners
The sweetness of sweeteners is affected by many factors, the main ones are concentration, temperature and medium,
Generally speaking, the higher the concentration of sweetener, the greater the sweetness. However, the degree of sweetness of most sweeteners is not the same as the concentration increases.
The sweetness of most sweeteners is affected by temperature and usually decreases with increasing temperature. For example, a 5% fructose solution has a sweetness of 147 at 5°C, 128.5 at 18°C, 100 at 40°C, and 79.5 at 60°C.
The medium also has an effect. In an aqueous solution below 40°C, the sweetness of fructose is higher than that of sucrose, and the sweetness of the two in lemon juice is roughly the same.
