British scientist creates song that makes chocolate taste sweeter

A scientist from the University of Bristol is going viral after creating a special melody that tricks the brain into making chocolate taste sweeter than it already is.

Galaxy Chocolate, a chocolate brand based in the UK, commissioned a 90-second song from sound expert Natalie Hyacinth from the University of Bristol, which they titled ‘The Sweetest Melody.’

The track utilizes ‘multisensory integration‘ — basically, the way your brain combines information from multiple senses like sight, sound, and touch — to create a mixture of sensations that increase the sweet flavor of chocolate.

Sound expert makes unique song to enhance chocolate’s sweetness

Through Hyacinth’s research, she discovered that relaxing music played in a major key can make sweet treats taste even sweeter and smoother. She and her team of fellow scientists studied “sonic qualities” like pitch, tempo, and harmony to come up with the song’s flavor-enhancing powers.

“The more regulated the music is, the sweeter it can taste,” she explained in an interview with SWNS Digital. “The [song] is a beautiful, piano-layered melodic track that is in a high pitch with a BPM of 78. The harp is obviously a very beautiful sound in a high pitch and high key.”

These layered sounds work with other senses in the brain to ‘trick’ it into thinking chocolate tastes sweeter than it usually does. You can try it out for yourself; this writer gave it a spin, and found that it only slightly increased the sweetness of a Chocolove Milk Chocolate bar.

A team of news casters with KTLA 5 also tried it out on the air, but their results were mostly mixed, given they tried chocolate that expired in 2023.

While it’s certainly a marketing tactic for Galaxy, it uses real science to make their chocolate even richer than usual.

“In an exploration of sensory science, Galaxy Chocolate has developed a music track that aims to enhance the sweet, smooth, silky and creamy notes that underpin every single bite,” they wrote on YouTube.