To reduce human contact, online tools have been widely used under the new normal–becoming a global trend. Increasing the opportunities to use online shopping and online meetings tremendously.

However, online services still have limits, as current technology only can exchange text, voice, image, and video.
Today a science fiction-like project is underway at a Japanese university to “actualize online tasting”.

Professor Homei Miyashita of the Department of Frontier Media Science (FMS) in the Faculty of Interdisciplinary Mathematical Sciences (IMS) at Meiji University is researching this far-fetched idea.
Professor Miyashita developed a ‘taste display’ that allows people to taste flavours even when you are far away from each other.

It is called the “Norimaki Synthesizer”, containing five electrolyte gels of the basic flavours: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. Using ion electrophoresis, you can identify multiple taste as the device controls the amount of each gels (each flavour) applied to your tongue.
According to Professor Miyashita, “it uses electric current for electrophoresis rather than electrically stimulating the tongue, and it does not involve ingestion of a solution to provide the taste”.
In other words, you can taste food without actually eating it.

Imagine e-commerce mall giants, such as Amazon, Shopee and Lazada adopt a new taste-testing service with this device. They will distribute it to their users.
Plug it into a USB port on your PC, or link it to your smartphone via Bluetooth. With this, you can taste unknown foods before buying them.
If this is made possible, people can easily check if they like the food so no more mistakes when food shopping.

This research is the first of its kind in the world. A patent for it has been filed as of last spring (patent pending). There may come a day when this dreamlike research in Japan becomes a reality.
We’re looking forward to it!

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