Artificial Tongue Measures Spiciness: How Spicy Is Your Food?

Chinese researchers created an artificial tongue that measures spiciness without anyone taking a bite. Now you don’t have to wash your mouth out with milk.

The device looks like a small, transparent square of soft gel and works by detecting capsaicin, the compound that makes peppers burn. The innovation takes inspiration from a trick most people already know: milk kills the heat in spicy food. Casein proteins in milk bind to capsaicin and neutralize the burning sensation.

How did the team build this milk-based spice sensor?

The Chinese food science research team, led by Weijun Deng, incorporated skim milk powder into an electrochemical casein protein gel sensor. They combined acrylic acid, choline chloride, and milk powder, then exposed the mixture to UV light. The result is a flexible, opaque, tongue-shaped film that conducts electricity. When capsaicin touches the surface, the electrical current drops within 10 seconds. The stronger the spice, the bigger the drop. The device can detect capsaicin levels ranging from below what humans can taste to way beyond the pain threshold. It also picks up other pungent compounds in ginger, black pepper, horseradish, garlic, and onion.

To test it, researchers tried eight types of peppers and eight spicy foods, including hot sauces. They measured the electrical current changes and compared the results to ratings from human taste testers. The artificial tongue matched the human panel remarkably well. Beyond saving taste buds from unnecessary suffering, the technology could have practical applications. Food manufacturers could standardize spiciness levels without needing subjective taste panels. The device might work in portable taste-monitoring gadgets or even humanoid robots that need to evaluate food. It could also help people with ageusia, a condition where you can’t taste, assess whether food is too spicy before eating. The research appeared in the journal ACS Sensors in October 2025.

How will the artificial tongue that measures spiciness be used?

Most likely, this new capsaicin detection technology will be used in food production, where it will be put to work measuring spicy food levels. This could mean the end of hot sauce spiciness testing by humans who end up with burning taste buds and foods that are too hot for them to handle. Of course, it could also be developed into a portable taste-monitoring device to help people solve their ageusia sensory issues through technology that makes it possible for them to be warned about the spiciness of some foods before eating them.

Could it do more than detect spiciness?

Eventually, the artificial tongue that measures spiciness could also be used to help people understand the right combination of spices and flavors to make food even more appealing. This device could help chefs avoid putting too much pepper in a dish or adding more salt when necessary. If the sensory technology improves enough, the artificial tongue could be the perfect device to help ensure everyone has tasty food, especially when it’s developed and used in commercial kitchens.

Will the artificial tongue that measures spiciness lead to taste meters?

If this technology becomes universal, it could lead to a standard meter of spiciness and sweetness for foods. Most people have various levels of taste, and some can handle more of either than others. Creating technology that allows for a standard system of measurement could make a huge difference in food preparation. The team that developed this first artificial tongue is also working on other models that can measure varying levels of sweetness and umami, among other things, ensuring they have the right combination to measure each type of food.

Of course, different types of flavors and levels of sweetness or tanginess are much more difficult to measure than spiciness. Milk has the materials to respond to the capsaicin concentrations that allow the artificial tongue that measures spiciness to function properly, but that doesn’t mean it can detect the proper flavor combination of anything else yet.

This new device could be a big deal in the food world, which requires taste-testers to burn their tongues on hot peppers. That won’t be the case if this device can be produced and used by food producers around the world. Considering the results from the taste-test panel closely matched the artificial tongue that measures spiciness, this new device can be used by companies to ensure they produce food that is safe for human consumption and avoid creating food that isn’t.

Could this new device be the next step in the world of food preparation? Can it help protect your taste buds from the burn you don’t want from spicy food?