Are you stuck to the title of the post? Do you think you or your kids pick candies on impulse? Yes? Oh! We are sorry to burst the bubble for you and let you know the sweet reality behind your thoughtful purchase of yummy candies.
Every day, the team at House of Candy watches visitors walk the candy-themed aisle, get hypnotised by the ambience and leave with their favourite candy confections. They choose from a variety of hard candies, gummies, chocolates, handcrafted lollipops, selecting a few classics that might have struck the chord with their heart or maybe a couple of treats they’ve never tried before. And need not to say, that’s the beauty of visiting the colourful store and making your heart melt with the little sweet offerings. There are a ton of options to choose from. But do you ever realise, why do we choose the specific candy we do? Why is that one person likes the gummy yellow bellies but some other person finds it creepy-crawly? House of Candy investigates below to find out the psychology and the science behind the taste and decipher why we choose what we choose.
The Five Senses
The first thing that we learn in our budding years- “Human five senses”. Touch, taste, sight, sound and smell are our five senses that even a toddler can identify with and could be a great factor in driving one’s purchase. How things taste is majorly dependent on how the food that we eat sounds, smells, looks and feels! For instance, when you eat gummies, one expects it to be elastic and chewy but when you eat a lollipop, you expect it to be crunchy and juicy. Right? But how do we perceive it to be like that only? The answer is the way we receive this information is through the senses which is a result of both nature and nurture. Throughout our childhood, we are taught certain notions, qualities that we attach to these candies and we subconsciously identify them with the same perceptions only.
Many times, we mistake the taste to be the same as the flavour. In those scenarios, senses help us to differentiate between the two. For example, a giant strawberry tastes sweet and the flavour is strawberry. Try doing a fun activity with yourself or maybe a friend. Block your nose and eat a giant strawberry, you would find that it would taste sweet but not specifically like a strawberry. That’s because it is through the scent of strawberry you till now tasting it as strawberry. Don’t believe us? Visit House of Candy and grab a handful of candies, block your nose and eyes and try to identify the name of the candies. When you unblock your nose, you’ll get a rush of smell and likely be able to identify the flavour. It is the same with jelly beans! They are the same candy and each colour of jelly beans is coated with a scent.
The Five Flavours
Not only do we have five senses, but we can also taste a combination of five flavours in our food! These are mainly sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami. Now you would have identified the first four flavours but got stuck to the fifth umami flavour and would be wondering, what is that. Correct? Umami is the term coined by Japanese culture that roughly translates to something that has a “wonderful taste”. It has the taste of savouriness that is pleasantly wonderful in candies. Though we haven’t started with these types of candies yet, if you find a candy that tastes a little savoury and meaty, bang on you discovered the umami flavour.
Taste and The Human Body
Do you know? On average, our taste buds regenerate every three days! Surprising? This is the sweet truth. But as we get older, our taste buds regenerate at a slower rate causing us to require more flavour to achieve the same taste. For example, those who have a preference for eating sweets will eat more and more sweets over the years( maybe without even realising it). It is the same reason why you may develop a taste for some food that you despised as a child. And we have seen at our stores, it’s the children who make most of the candy buying decisions and it’s their parents who pay for them. This is because children tend to be pickier. After all, they are much more sensitive to taste.
The speed at which our taste buds regenerate, the combination of how our 5 senses perceive taste along with the balance of nature and nurture, all takes the role in deciding the flavours we like and dislike. So, next time you visit our Candyland, take a moment to realise that it’s your senses doing the magic.
Check out our yummilicious assortment of candies. We offer a lot of imported candies, chocolates and lollipops that melt in your mouth and are a perfect fit for all your sugar cravings.
