Flavor-enhanced beverage product and method of enhancing the flavor thereof

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10375976-B2
Application number	US-201615088575-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 1, 2016
Priority date	Apr 1, 2016
Publication date	Aug 13, 2019
Grant date	Aug 13, 2019

Abstract

A flavor-enhanced beverage includes an added amount of pyroglutamic acid or a salt thereof. The pyroglutamic acid may be in the form of L-pyroglutamic acid, D-pyroglutamic acid, monosodium L-pyroglutamate, monosodium D-pyroglutamate, or a mixture thereof. Both ready-to-drink beverages (such as fruit juices, vegetable juices, coffee, tea, carbonated soft drinks, energy drinks, sports drinks, dairy, and low calorie drinks) as well as concentrated beverages used for the preparation of ready-to-drink beverages benefit from the addition of the pyroglutamic acid. The addition to a beverage product may be in an amount of up to about 3,000 ppm of pyroglutamic acid or a salt thereof, in concentrates, or up to about 300 ppm in ready-to-drink beverages.

First claim

We claim:

1. A coffee beverage product comprising an added amount of L-pyroglutamic acid or a salt thereof, wherein the concentration of added L-pyroglutamic acid or salt thereof ranges from about 5 ppm to less than 100 ppm by weight of the coffee beverage product;
wherein the coffee beverage product is substantially free of added D-pyroglutamic acid; and
wherein the coffee beverage product has enhanced mouthfeel relative to a coffee beverage product without added L-pyroglutamic acid.

2. The coffee beverage product of claim 1 wherein the L-pyroglutamic acid or salt thereof is in the form of L-pyroglutamic acid, monosodium L-pyroglutamate, or a mixture thereof.

3. The coffee beverage product of claim 1 further comprising dairy.

4. The coffee beverage product of claim 1 further comprising an added flavor.

5. The coffee beverage product of claim 1 further comprising a sweetener, water, dairy, caffeine, carbonation, fruit juice, vegetable juice, food grade acid, or a mixture thereof.

6. The coffee beverage product of claim 1 wherein the coffee beverage product is a ready-to-drink coffee beverage and wherein the concentration of added L-pyroglutamic acid or salt thereof in the coffee beverage ranges from about 5 ppm to about 75 ppm by weight of the beverage product.

7. The coffee beverage product of claim 6 wherein the concentration of added L-pyroglutamic acid or salt thereof in the coffee beverage ranges from about 5 ppm to about 50 ppm by weight of the beverage product.

8. The coffee beverage product of claim 6 wherein the concentration of added L-pyroglutamic acid or salt thereof in the coffee beverage ranges from about 15 ppm to about 50 ppm by weight of the beverage product.

9. A method of enhancing mouthfeel of a coffee beverage product, the method comprising adding L-pyroglutamic acid or a salt thereof to the coffee beverage product, wherein the concentration of added L-pyroglutamic acid or salt thereof in the coffee beverage product ranges from about 5 ppm to less than 100 ppm by weight of the beverage product; and
wherein the coffee beverage product is substantially free of added D-pyroglutamic acid.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the L-pyroglutamic acid is added to the coffee beverage product in the form of L-pyroglutamic acid, monosodium L-pyroglutamate, or a mixture thereof.

11. The method of claim 9 further comprising adding the L-pyroglutamic acid or salt thereof to a flavor or flavor solvent prior to adding the L-pyroglutamic acid or salt thereof to the coffee beverage product.

12. The method of claim 9 wherein the coffee beverage product is a ready-to-drink coffee beverage and wherein the concentration of L-pyroglutamic acid or salt thereof in the coffee beverage after the L-pyroglutamic acid has been added ranges from about 5 ppm to about 75 ppm by weight of the beverage product.

13. A coffee beverage product comprising an added amount of pyroglutamic acid or a salt thereof, wherein the concentration of added pyroglutamic acid or salt thereof ranges from about 5 ppm to less than 100 ppm by weight of the beverage product;
wherein the added pyroglutamic acid consists of L-pyroglutamic acid and D-pyroglutamic acid in a ratio ranging from about 50:50 to about 100:0; and
wherein the coffee beverage product has an enhanced mouthfeel relative to a coffee beverage product without added pyroglutamic acid.

Assignees

• Frito Lay North America Inc

Inventors

• Baier Stefan K
• CHAMBERS Peta-Gaye
• Johnson Winsome
• Potineni Rajesh Venkata

Classifications

• A23L2/60

  Sweeteners · CPC title

• A23F3/40

  Tea flavour; Tea oil; Flavouring of tea or tea extract (synthetic tea flavours A23L27/20) · CPC title

• A23L2/385

  Concentrates of non-alcoholic beverages · CPC title

• A23L2/40

  Effervescence-generating compositions · CPC title

• A23L2/02

  containing fruit or vegetable juices · CPC title