Airlines Aim to Trick Your Taste Buds at 30,000 Feet
Airlines Aim to Trick Your Taste Buds at 30,000 Feet
AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTYou have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.Plastic cutlery and cups are also largely to blame when your drinks don’t taste as good while you’re flying.Credit...Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesMarch 1, 2017LONDON — Finally, beer may start tasting good at 30,000 feet. Airlines, which usually get a bad rap for bad food and so-so drinks, are starting in earnest to plug the sensory gap.They are aided by the knowledge that noise, low pressure, dry air, plastic cutlery and cups are also largely to blame for meals that taste less than appetizing. Studies have shown that those factors alter the way we taste things at high altitude compared to when we’re on the ground.On Wednesday, Cathay Pacific, the Hong Kong carrier, introduced on some flights a beer brewed to taste good while the flier is miles above the earth. It contains honey and “dragon eye,” a fruit that tastes like lychee.“We know that when you fly, your sense of taste changes,” Julian Lyden, marketing manager at Cathay Pacific, said in an interview. “Airlines address this for food in certain ways.”For example, background noise on the plane suppresses sweet and salty taste, said Charles Spence, a professor of experimental psychology at Oxford University who advises airlines on food and is set to publish a book on “gastrophysics” this month.Our sensitivity to sweet and salty foods drops by about 30 percent in the air, compared to when we’re on the ground, according to a 2010 study commissioned by Lufthansa and conducted by the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics in Germany.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT