C.W. Brabender Instruments Inc., along with Kanagawa, Japan-based Intelligent Sensor Technology Inc. (Insent), offers the Taste Sensing System TS-5000Z for collecting taste data. The system employs the same mechanism as the human tongue through the use of artificial lipid membrane sensors, which imitate the taste reception of food goods and pharmaceuticals and interprets them as numerical data, the company says. The quantification of taste data is handled by original algorithms and can be displayed in various ways through a rich array of graphing tools, it says.  In addition to the evaluation of initial taste, the instrument also measures the richness, sharpness, bitterness and astringency characteristics of aftertastes, it adds.

C.W. Brabender Instruments Inc., 50 E. Wesley St., South Hackensack, N.J. 07606; 201/343-8425; cwbrabender.com.