Background: Products with strong non-tobacco flavours are popular among young people, and facilitate smoking initiation. Similar to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Tobacco Control Act, the new European Tobacco Product Directive (TPD) prohibits cigarettes and roll-your-own tobacco with a characterising flavour other than tobacco. However, no methods are prescribed or operational to assess characterising flavours. This is the first study to identify, review and synthesize the existing peer-reviewed and tobacco industry literature in order to provide an inventory of methods suitable to assess characterising flavours.
Methods: Authors gathered key empirical and theoretical papers examining methods suitable to assess characterising flavours. Scientific literature databases (PubMed and Scopus) and tobacco industry documents were searched, based on several keyword combinations. Inclusion criteria were relevance for smoked tobacco products, and quality of data.
Results: The findings reveal that there is a wide variation in natural tobacco flavours. Flavour differences from natural tobacco can be described by both expert and consumer sensory panels. Most methods are based on smoking tests, but odour evaluation has also been reported. Chemical analysis can be used to identify and quantify levels of specific flavour additives in tobacco products.
Conclusions: As flavour perception is subjective, and requires human assessment, sensory analysis in consumer or expert panel studies is necessitated. We recommend developing validated tests for descriptive sensory analysis in combination with chemical-analytical measurements. Testing a broad range of brands, including those with quite subtle characterizing flavours, will provide the concentration above which an additive will impart a characterising flavour.
Keywords: Adolescents; Chemical analysis; Sensory research; Smoking initiation; Tobacco consumption; Tobacco flavours.
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