It was my birthday last week and as I face the precipice of old age, I feel entitled to start writing letters of complaint and ramble about the wrongs of the universe. As I wonder how many taste buds I have already lost and how many more will be fading away with the ticking of the clock, all I can think of is that at least I will always have mouthfeel.

Mouthfeel is a term used by sensory scientists to separate how food and drink feel in the mouth rather than how they taste. For example, if you pop a grape in your mouth without biting it, you will notice it feels smooth. A raisin on the other hand will feel wrinkly, and bumpy. Tell me this, when buying grapes would you feel excited if the pack described them as “smooth”? The term would be accurate and precise, yet I sense it would not drive the wanton impulse purchase of grapes or a sudden desire to ravish them.

Red wines are often described as smooth or with a pleasant texture which refers to their soft tannins rather than being overly astringent. In this case, it’s not the surface of the wine we judge but more how it makes our mouths feel when we take a sip. Smooth is then perceived as a positive attribute because it’s the absence of the unpleasantness of dryness. The absence of a negative becomes a positive, but it does not mean the presence of a positive. The term smooth on a wine label is like code for “it won’t make your mouth hurt”. If faced with the option of having sandpaper or smooth wax rolling around in your mouth, the wax is the no brainer choice. Neither are positive, but one at least is pain free.

Lemonade simply cannot be described as smooth but terms like mouth puckering, rough, or descriptions such as “it will denature proteins and attack your mouth lining” would all be emphatically rejected by copywriters and this is why, despite being accurate, they don’t appear on advertising or labels.

These descriptions are not perceived as glamorous or enticing so they must be transformed into palatable terms. Tarty, zingy or juicy are all used to sound less like DEFCON 1 when warning us about the wincing and eye twitching effects that acids have when ingested. Perhaps we wouldn’t purchase a bottle of pink lemonade no matter how stunning the label design, if the happy strap line was “your saliva will cease to lubricate your mouth”.

When it comes to coffee, smooth is used infuriatingly too often as a descriptor. The term is frequently associated with the absence of overly bitter and sour tastes. In this case smooth is used again to highlight the absence of negatives like acids which can cause pain when in excess and caffeine which has a negative unpleasant reaction when perceived. In the context of coffee, smooth is not only limited to its original definition linked to how the mouth feels, but also to human acceptability (or lack of) when it comes to a taste, bitter. If acid (with joyful flavours and aromatics) is dumbed down and bitter (glorious caffeine) are whisked away from coffee, there is little left for someone of my advanced age to revel in. Smooth is the blandness of puree, the flatness of liquified food, the sadness of desert plains.