Why is it that spicy food always seems so much spicier when hot (temperature)?
In: Other
Try drinking hot tea after eating something spicy, just makes it feel like your mouth is on fire even more.
The chemical, capsaicin that makes things feel hot makes your mouth more sensitive to your own and ambient or nearby temperature differences. So when something is both spicy and warm it feels extreme but a spicy item cold is typically more tolerable.
Although don’t eat a ghost pepper cold because I doubt it will matter. In fact don’t eat one at all.
Kind of like when you have minty gum and you drink water and practically get frost bite from room temp water
Because Capsaicin, the substance that makes spicy foods spicy, activates the same receptors we use to detect heat. That plus most chemical reactions go down more quickly with higher temparature.
Echoing Deribus, heat may affect the reaction rate, but capsaicin (to my understanding) also activates the same nerves that sense when your mouth is warming (since we dont actually feel temperature).
Also, low temperature food may have a numbing effect on your tongue which makes it less sensitive to the capsaicin stimulus.
Foods that are higher in temperature activate and ultimately bond to your tase receptors faster. So flavors feel more active than if they were from a cold food.
Also, spicy food is more of a system shock flavor that several other foods due to most people not having the biological disposition to process it as well as others. So it tends to feel more intense.
Put both together and suddenly want sensation that is intense gets crazy
In addition to what everyone else is saying about taste receptors, just heating spices changes the flavor profile regardless of what temp you it eat it.
Here’s a simple experiment that shows this additional aspect.
Take some dried chili flakes.
Try some (on other food) direct from the container.
Then, take a pinch and rub it between your fingers before adding to your food.
You’ll find that the rubbed flakes will be much more flavorful even though it’s at roughly the same temperature.
It was (unscientifically) explained to me that “waking up” spices with heat “activates” and “releases” the oils that impart spicy flavor. That’s why many recipes require spices to be toasted, and other heated recipes require tiny portions of spicy ingredients to convey big flavor during cooking.
While the spiciness potential is the same at any temp, heating spicy food seems to draw out the capsaicin which allows you to taste more of the spice.
[removed]
I forget the actual receptor name – it’s been a while (Trpv1 from a quick google search) but we call the sensation hot because it quite literally is binding to receptors on your tongue and in your mouth that relate to sensing/ regulating temperature (and can produce pain/irritability responses etc). Eating foods that are hot in temperature (another trigger for these receptors/related thermal receptors) then is an additive effect for your overall sensation of sensing hot/increased temperature. Menthol (like menthol cigarettes) has the opposite effect that works in a similar way in that it binds to tprm8 to create a cooling effect.
The heat you feel from spice is due to a chemical reaction of capsaicin with your taste buds and pain receptors. Chemical reactions happen faster at higher temperatures, and so the capsaicin reacts faster, making the spice feel more intense.
This is also why things tend to taste stronger when hot, and weaker when cold.
Latest Answers