How is sweetness measured?
Sweetness is commonly measured by comparison to reference solutions of sucrose. Sucrose is the standard to which all other sweeteners are compared. Humans can recognize sweetness in about 1 or 2% sucrose solution. Coffee is typically sweetened to about the level of 5% sucrose. Soft drinks were usually about 10% sucrose before they switched to high fructose corn syrup. 15% sucrose is really sweet and starts to feel a little syrupy. So taste panelists usually are trained to quantitate sweetness on a 15 cm line scale, using 2-15% sucrose solutions as references. For a detailed discussion, see “A Systematic Study of Concentration-Response Relationships of Sweeteners,” G.E. DuBois, D.E. Walters, S.S. Schiffman, Z.S. Warwick, B.J. Booth, S.D. Pecore, K. Gibes, B.T. Carr, and L.M. Brands, in Sweeteners: Discovery, Molecular Design and Chemoreception, D.E. Walters, F.T. Orthoefer, and G.E. DuBois, Eds., American Chemical Society, Washington, DC (1991), pp 261-276.
