By Dr. Yana Steudel
Sweet. Sour. Salty. Bitter. And then came umami, expanding our understanding of the palate and giving us a fifth basic taste.
For years, taste was the absolute priority in my product development. I built an entire collection around it called PURE TASTE — focused entirely on clear, precise and instantly recognizable taste.
I still stand by that foundation today. But over time, PURE TASTE ceased to feel like the final destination.
My work across vastly different fields — from aviation to Smart Indulgence and longevity — kept bringing me back to the same thought:
We don’t need to change the taste itself. We need to change how the brain tastes it.
This shift in perception is where my product development is moving now.
The rule is strict: the taste stays pure.
Mushrooms is an example. I have no interest in creating mushroom with something else. I don’t want another ingredient stepping in and turning it into mushroom and pepper, mushroom and spice, or mushroom and X.
Mushroom should still taste purely of mushroom.
The interesting part is what can happen around that unchanged taste:
- Can we give it more depth without making it stronger?
- Can it feel warmer on the palate without becoming spicy?
- Can its presence persist longer without making it heavier?
The answer is a resounding yes.
As a chemist, I do use chemistry in product design. But chemistry for me is first of all knowledge: understanding what naturally exists in an ingredient, which molecules are responsible for which sensations, and which signals ultimately reach the brain.
It has never meant reaching for a bottle from a chemical catalogue.
My advantage is that I know how compounds behave. I know what piperonal is. I know what sanshool does — how a naturally occurring molecule can create that extraordinary tingling, vibrating sensation through our somatosensory system without becoming another identifiable flavour.
That knowledge allows me to work with ingredients differently.
And this is precisely what is defining the next generation of my products.
In the next generation of PURE SAUCE Mushrooms, nothing should distract from mushroom. Instead, the mushroom takes you deeper into the forest, leaving a sensory impression that continues after the taste itself.
And the next-generation PURE TASTE Black Garlic takes even umami into another dimension — with a warm, comforting depth on the palate while remaining unmistakably black garlic.
The taste stays. Its perception changes.
Umami gave us the fifth basic taste. And yes, I am looking for the sixth.
But at the same time, I am fascinated by what happens when we take a taste we already know and give its perception another dimension — more depth, more presence, a longer sensory echo.
A taste that does not simply last longer on the palate, but stays in memory.
We are moving beyond simply designing what something tastes like.
We are beginning to design how the brain tastes the taste.
