Why Do Drinks Taste Better with a Straw?

While chains like Starbucks have done away with plastic straws, paper and metal straws are still pretty common. There are plenty of alternatives to plastic straws, which means you’ll find yourself sipping a cold drink out of a straw every now and then.

Meaning, don’t forget about straws! In fact, there’s something about drinking a cold beverage through a straw that makes it taste even better. Here’s the simple explanation behind this phenomenon.

First, How Does Taste Work?

Contrary to what we learned in elementary school, the tongue senses much more than sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami. Your taste buds are sensitive! And because taste works hand in hand with our sense of smell, humans pick up a lot more than we may think.

When we take a sip of something, the receptors in our nose pick up volatile organic compounds. These compounds, known as VOCs, lead the way in producing aromas—the strong scents we associate with food and drink. As aromas intensify (and they will with heat), more definitive, complex tastes are perceived on the tongue. Yum!

Why Do Drinks Taste Better with a Straw?

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The key here is temperature. Let’s think about a milkshake—cold, right? If you’re not sipping it through a straw, you’ll likely get a mouthful of chilled ice cream and a brain freeze, and it’s probably not going to taste much like chocolate or vanilla. In this instance, your mouth is overwhelmed by the cold temperature of the shake, slowing down the process of VOCs getting picked up by the receptors in your nose.

Take one sip with a straw and that all changes. The amount of ice cream in your mouth is smaller, giving it more room to heat up, melt and send VOCs straight to the nose. The result is a sweet and tasty milkshake. It may be time to test this science with our milkshake recipes!