Does heating fruit make it sweeter?
Intensify the fruit flavors!
Cooking concentrates their natural sugars, making them sweeter.
Higher contents of sugar in the fruit increases the sweetness of the fruit. Additionally, different forms of sugar affect the sweetness of the fruit. In fruit such as apples, peaches, and plums, the main sugars present are sorbitol, sucrose, fructose, and glucose.
The cooking process can cause some destruction of beneficial compounds in fruits and vegetables (phytochemicals, antioxidants, vitamins, minerals), BUT it can also make some beneficial compounds (such as lycopene) more available to the body. In fact, microwaving is actually a good way to minimize the loss of nutrients!
I understand that sun light is needed for fruits to ripen. In the years with less sun light, the fruits are usually not so sweet. So the sun light is needed to make the fruits sweet.
The sweetness of sucrose depends on the temperature as well as the concentration of a solution. The main effect is that relatively low concentrations gain sweetness as temperature increases. This effect diminishes with progressively higher concentration and finally becomes negligible at about 0.5 M.
According to the researchers, the reaction of TRPM5 in our taste buds is much more intense when the temperature of food or fluid is increased, sending a stronger electrical signal to the brain and resulting in an enhanced taste. "The clearest example for sweet taste is ice cream.
"It has to do with the seasoning of the fruit. Anytime you partially break down the structure of the fruit, you tend to sweeten it," he said. "As long as the [temperatures are] not too severe and totally doesn't damage the fruit. The slight freeze elevates the sugar content."
Adding spices can enhance the taste of food. Cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, allspice, mace, cardamom and star anise are commonly associated with sweetness. These spices are often used in baked goods and pair especially well with fruit dishes. Vanilla extract can also make food seem sweeter, perhaps due to its aroma.
Generally, cold suppresses sweetness. As an example, consider soft drinks that are usually served cold: they taste sweeter when warm (like you said with your examples of drinks).
Boiling fruits may result in the loss of many vital vitamins.As much as one-half to one-third of vitamins A and C, thiamine and riboflavin are lost in cooking. Soaking fruits can rob them of their nutrients because many of the minerals and vitamins found in vegetables dissolve in water.
Why do fruits taste weird when warm?
It's because different taste buds are activated differently depending on temperature.
It's not that fruit can't be put in the microwave; it's just that you'll need to be careful when it comes to whole fruits. That's because nuking fruits like grapes, peaches and apples in their skin doesn't allow moisture to escape, which means, yep, you guessed it—molten jam all over the place.
Provide plenty of sunlight
Find a sunny location for your plants. The heat and light will help produce sweet and flavoursome fruit.
Be mindful of where you store your fresh fruit in the kitchen. Warmer areas can speed up ethylene gas production, and certain types of fruit stored close together can ripen one another. Avoid manipulating ethylene gas production too long before a piece of fruit is ripe.
Because the water has been removed from dried fruit, this concentrates all the sugar and calories in a much smaller package. For this reason, dried fruit is very high in calories and sugar, including both glucose and fructose.
It's never a good idea to put fruit in the microwave. Grapes, for example, will explode, and raisins send off so much plasma that they can ruin your microwave.
Our sense of taste is more sensitive to warm food than to cold food. That is why the frozen ice cream probably tasted just sweet enough, whereas the melted version probably tasted much too sweet. Similarly the frozen chocolate probably had very little taste until it warmed up in your mouth.
Having iced/chilled drinks or hot beverages with your meal decreases the intensity of sweet/bitter/umami flavours whereas room temperature or lukewarm liquids amplifies them.