Sensory Irritants?

Reading an excerpt from the 'Food Flavors and Ingredients Outlook 2008*' I was interested to see that that 2008 is expected to see 'Umami' become a household name - I'm sure I talked about that back in the early 90's (How time flies in the Food Industry). More of interest however was the statement that both Coffee and Wasabi are flavors that are expected to cross to additional categories and the use of 'sensory irritants' such as pepper are going to increase to provide more unique characters.

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