Anatomy of a Tic Tac Orange Mint

The orange flavor of Tic Tac Orange Mints unfolds like the experience of eating an orange out of hand. Flavor chemists want you to think of the real thing even if the candy doesn't have the same form factor as orange fruit. The result? Candy plays pretend, and our brain consciously plays right along with it because candy tastes good, inspires memories and is fun to eat.

Mass-produced candy ensures a specific eating experience every time and that's by design. Candy is a form of comfort and reward across cultures. When you eat candy, you expect it to taste exactly like you remember it. The everyday chaos of adult life is sublimated by candy's constancy. Add a few childhood memories and it's easy to get hooked on candy when you’re decades past being a kid.

The flavor chemistry in Tic Tac Orange Mints is an industry secret, but if you read the ingredient list you can do a bit of flavor sleuthing and decode what you sense, but can't see. Orange Tic Tacs contain: sugar, maltodextrin, tartaric acid, natural and artificial flavors, rice starch, gum arabic, magnesium stearate, ascorbic acid, Yellow 6 and carnauba wax. So, what does this mean? A sweet and sour profile at a quick glance, but there's more.

The first ingredient is sugar (sucrose) and that means sugar is used in the greatest quantity compared to ingredients that follow it on the ingredient list. Sugar is followed by maltodextrin, a polysaccharide that improves texture, taste and shelf life. Maltodextrin isn't sweet on its own. Amylase, an enzyme found in saliva, breaks down maltodextrin, which is absorbed by the body as glucose.  

The next ingredient, tartaric acid, is found in grapes, bananas, tamarind, citrus fruits and wine. Tartaric acid's salt is potassium bitartrate, aka cream of tartar, which can be mixed with sodium bicarbonate to make baking powder. Congratulations! You've entered the realm of food science by investigating a candy ingredient list. 

Pour yourself a glass of wine and congratulate yourself as you toast the wonders of tartaric acid! You've graduated from Sweet Tarts, Fun Dip and Smarties Candy Necklaces, all of which include a combination of malic acid and tartaric acid to create delightful puckering effects that turned you into a candy lover in the first place.

Natural and artificial flavors cited in the ingredient list for Tic Tac Orange Mints are just that. Specific molecular constituents used to shape the candy's unique taste and flavor are akin to a family recipe for pasta sauce. Family members who know the recipe pass it down from one generation to the next. In the food industry, proprietary knowledge and trade secrets are protected by legal and binding non-disclosure agreements. You don’t share them with anyone (it’s a “take-it-to-the-grave” kind of thing).

Ingredients used to flavor candy are natural, "nature-identical", and/or synthetic. Chemical compounds and single molecules that scream "oranges" and those that support the chemistry of orange flavor define a Tic Tac "orange" experience. An example of a supporting ingredient in orange flavor would be a material with a zesty green aroma associated with orange peel.

Gum arabic is ubiquitous as far as food applications go. It’s added to confectionary glazes and is also used as a probiotic. Rice starch smoothes the surface of candy coatings and has additional applications as well. Magnesium stearate, on the other hand, prevents ingredients from sticking to mechanical equipment in the manufacturing process. It's commonly used as a lubricant for tablets. 

Ascorbic acid is also on the Tic Tac Orange Mints ingredient list. You may recognize it if you've read the ingredients label on a bottle of vitamins because ascorbic acid is another name for vitamin C. This doesn't mean that Tic Tac Orange Mints are vitamins, so you can't use this fact to make candy guilt go away or use Tic Tac Orange Mints to raise Linus Pauling from the dead.

Yellow 6 is also known as "sunset yellow" in the language of artificial food colors. Artificial colors are shelf stable (they don't lose their color quickly over time and under the proper storing conditions). This could change as companies like Kalsec, which specializes in natural food color technology, offer stable natural color alternatives.

It's interesting to note that Orange Tic Tac Mints sold outside the U.S. are colorless (they're white) due to rules and regulations related to artificial food coloring. In Canada, for instance, Tic Tac Orange Mints are packed in a plastic container that's tinted orange to signal flavor expectations in the absence of Yellow 6 food coloring.

Carnauba wax (Copernicia cerifera) is the last ingredient in Orange Tic Tac Mints and it's typically used as a coating or glazing ingredient. It's also one of the first ingredients you'll encounter in a store-bought orange (before you get to the cash register where Tic Tacs galore are staring you in the face). Carnauba wax is used in a proprietary form of artificial fruit wax that coats and protects fruit that's packaged and shipped to grocery stores. 

Now that you know the story behind the ingredients in Orange Tic Tac Mints, it's time to do a little sensory evaluation on your own. The experience will tell you a lot about what flavorists do without saying a word. To get the most out of this or any other tasting exercise, make sure you take your time.

If you do the exercise quickly, you'll miss important flavor transitions that define signature candy tasting experiences. Bear in mind that flavor is defined as the intersection between taste and smell. If you are rushing or distracted, you risk having a one-dimensional experience that’s mostly focused on taste (sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and savory).

Go somewhere where you can taste the candy without distraction. The experience goes beyond "sweet, sour, done, now give me another one". Pop a single orange Tic Tac in your mouth and savor it, noticing the sequence of sensations from beginning to end. Do this twice. Once for the ah-ha moment(s) and a second time to embed the experience in your brain as a reference point for future candy tastings. Writing down sensory impressions after the second tasting is a good idea.

Sensory evaluation requires focusing on sensations and memories inspired by the tasting experience. Imagine what chemistry class would’ve been like if sensory evaluation exercises were included in the curriculum. You wouldn't be reading this. You'd be a flavorist working at a lab bench creating flavors for candy. 

Mindfully tasting Tic Tac Orange Mints is akin to a candy-version of an orange from a flavor perspective. A sense of ephemerality sets in when you’re finished, but you can always taste another candy. Is eating orange fruit better than eating candy? Yes, but if you’re hankering for the perfect portion-controlled sweet, candy allows you to connect with flavor and memories, and there’s nothing wrong with that if you indulge in moderation.

Notes & Curiosities: 

 The acid in citrus fruit causes the mouth to water. The same response occurs when 

  you eat something that smells appetizing and tastes delicious. Common descriptors

   for orange fruit flavor are: acidic, citrusy, fragrant, fruity, sweet, tangy and zesty

Tic Tac Orange Mints were launched by Ferrero in 1974. The original Tic Tac mint was called "Refreshing Mints" in 1969 and was changed to "Tic Tac Fresh Mint" in 1970. 

Tic Tacs have nothing to do with the paper and pencil game called tic-tac-toe that's played in a three-by-three grid with "x" and "o" marks. The sound made by the candy as it rattles in the container inspired Tic Tac's onomatopoetic name.  

There is no mint flavor in Tic Tac Orange Mints (though there's a green nuance that is more leafy than minty that shows up in the first half of the tasting experience). The term “mint” is used as an indicator of something a person eats for refreshment and/or mint-flavored mints.

Mindfully eating Tic Tac Orange Mints can be included in chemistry curriculum so that students grow up to be adults with a métier in flavor science.  More information on becoming a flavorist (and/or flavor chemist) is available from the Society of Flavor Chemists. 

If you're curious about the flavor industry read The Flavor Industry: From 1945-1995. This link takes you to the PDF download on the Society of Flavor Chemists website. The publication was put together by the American Sources Association on behalf of the Society of Flavor Chemists. 

Flavor Stories: Dr. Roman Kaiser on Saffron's Affinity for Mullet and Shellfish

Shellfish and saffron have a natural affinity for each other. For some, the experience of savoring the flavor of a delicious paella is proof enough. Still, the desire to know why and certain flavors work so well together is enough to keep a curious cook up all night, or in some cases, inspire in a 2438 page corpus on molecular gastronomy.

Dr. Roman Kaiser is a renowned flavor and fragrance chemist who has dedicated his life to analyzing scents emitted by plants in their natural setting. Respectful of plant life and the environment he is known for utilizing dirigibles to conduct fragrance studies in locations including: Lower Amazonia, Papua New Guinea, India, and rainforest biotopes.

These days Dr. Kaiser can be found with both feet on the ground. He retired from Givaudan in 2011 and lectures at European universities. He spends more time doing things that he loves including foraging, canning and cooking; something he did in his youth as he spent a good part of that time in the hills and forests of Switzerland.

It isn't difficult to imagine a curious flavor story Kaiser shares from his childhood. As a young boy he added a few petals of Rosa centifolia from his father's nursery to a batch of homemade raspberry marmalade. The result was a memorable flavor pairing that inspired his pursuit of sensory science as an adult.

Last month I shared a recipe for parsley pesto with Dr. Kaiser via email and confessed that its success was the result of two unplanned events; accidentally buying parsley for a cilantro-based sofrito recipe and deciding to build a dairy-free pesto using the parsley as a flavor base.

I discovered that lemon zest and ground sumac temper garlic and parsley's assertiveness, creating multiple flavor complements. What I knew in the creation process as "instinct" is something I can now share as experience as there are clear reasons why this flavor experiment worked.

Lemon rind is not juicy, but if you add an umami enhancer like ground sumac berry you receive an added benefit; malic acid. Malic acid gives fruit a pleasant tart quality. In adding ground sumac berries to lemon zest one returns a sensory quality to lemon that is associated with a part of fruit that isn't present in the recipe; the juice-filled pulp. The effect is, in essence, a reconstitution of lemon's juicy character without the addition of water. The water forms in the mouth from the savory umami effect.

After sharing the recipe for parsley pesto with Dr. Kaiser he responded with a flavor story of his own. The event took place while he was dining at a restaurant on the Ligurian coast with colleagues (a story he relates on page 150 of his book Meaningful Scents from Around the World). If you're a home cook with a penchant for seafood and saffron you'll appreciate what Dr. Kaiser has to say about science and the role of a cook's instinct in the kitchen:

"...I would also like to describe a culinary insight. I was always wondering how the idea developed to add saffron to shrimps, prawns and red mullet. During a project at the Ligurian coast we once had lunch in a very simple but culinary-wise, wonderful restaurant where we could even see how the dishes were prepared. We had red mullet (rouget, Mullus barbatus) very delicately enhanced in its flavor with saffron, and I suddenly understood why they did this. 

The fresh red mullet itself already has a very faint saffron smell due to minute amounts of safranal and related compounds formed by degradation of carotenoids which gives the typical color to this and some other marine species, including shrimps. In fact, this faint saffron note is also perceivable in fresh shrimps and prawns, in which I have been able to demonstrate the presence of safranal by headspace trapping. 

Another fascinating example illustrating of how people are often able to do the right thing intuitively, in this case to support a very faintly present, but desirable olfactory note with a suitable spice.  

Dr. Kaiser's capacity for discovery defines him as a person and a scientist. These qualities make it a pleasure and privilege to know him. When I returned to read the passage about saffron and shellfish in his book, I found a note from Kate Greene, Vice President of Marketing at Givaudan. The note, written on July 1, 2008, was situated on page 152; one page ahead of the one Dr. Kaiser cited in his email to me. I must have used the note as a bookmark when I was writing about geosmin, a molecule that smells of freshly turned earth. Kate's note read, "On behalf of Roman, please enjoy his amazing book- it has given all of us much inspiration."

Meaningful Scents from Around the World has the approachable tone of an observational diary with a provocative scholarly flavor. It continues to attract readers because the human element in Dr. Kaiser's work, which is as much about curiosity as it is about science, is timeless. September 16th marks the eighth year since the book was published. Meaningful Scents from Around the World continues to inspire me. I have a feeling it always will...

Notes:
Details regarding Dr. Roman Kaiser's childhood discovery of rose-raspberry flavor pairing can be found in an interview conducted by Dyptique.

Dr. Roman Kaiser pioneered an aroma capturing technique in the 70's referred to as "headspace" trapping. This technique allows scent samples to be collected in the field without harming the plant.

Image of a dirigible from a ScentTrek® in Madagascar's Masaola Peninsula via Givaudan.

Image of a pint of red raspberries by Dan Klimke via Creative Commons.

Image of saffron threads by David Hawkins-Weeks via Creative Commons.

A big thanks to my husband, A.J. Kydd, who encouraged me to invent something new when I bought the wrong herb at the grocery store. It's nice to be reminded that mistakes and inconveniences are often opportunities in disguise.

"Inside the Olfactory Mind of Dr. Roman Kaiser" continues to be the most popular post on Glass Petal Smoke to date. It is part of a series of interviews regarding the sense of smell and memory.