Drinks are a common factor in our lives that can make people happy. Whether it is bubbling sparkling water or steaming milk tea, as long as these drinks touch the tip of our tongues, they can send out signals that make people happy.
Drinks are a common factor in our lives that can make people happy. /Picture·pexels
It often takes a long time for a drink to be developed and put into the market. The taste and price of the drink are also constantly changing during this process.
As the first contact with beverages, beverage R&D engineers are directly related to these changes. They are not only responsible for the color and taste of the beverages, but also reduce the cost of the beverages as much as possible so that the beverages can maximize the popularity of merchants and consumers. favor. In addition, they also need to properly deal with the negative effects of long-term consumption of certain types of drinks. No wonder beverage R&D engineer Shen Liang said in an interview: "It is not easy. If a beverage R&D engineer wants to produce a good drink, it really takes a lot of effort." Itâs not easy.â
Itâs not easy to develop a popular drink. /Picture·pexels
Only love can become a "drink"
Shen Liang, who chose to become a beverage R&D engineer "because of love", is 34 years old. He has been working in the beverage R&D industry for 4 years and currently works for a company in Guangzhou.
Shen Liangâs hometown is located in a southern city. People living there like drinking tea, especially brewing green tea.
Tea is a traditional drink in China. /Picture·pexels
Shen Liangâs father was even more passionate about drinks. He liked to try new things and brought coffee into the family early. Thanks to his father, Shen Liang first tasted coffee in elementary school. This experience was almost unique among his peers at that time. Different from the people in his hometown who are keen on drinking tea, Shen Liang fell in love with the unique temperament of coffee mixed with bitterness after drinking coffee for the first time, so that for many years after that, he always drank coffee more often than he drank tea. , even when moving around different cities, they will find coffee shops to enjoy coffee.
This was the beginning of Shen Liangâs relationship with coffee, but at this time he had not yet developed a deeper connection with coffee and the beverage industryâthis connection did not begin to emerge until Shen Liang graduated from university. Shen Liang studied computer science at university. During his university years, he used the knowledge he learned to build websites for different companies, and thus achieved economic freedom during his university years. Normally, it would be easy for Shen Liang to find a job related to website development after graduating from university, but he chose to enter the coffee industry and became a coffee beverage distributor shortly after graduation.
Shen Liang has been associated with coffee since he was a child. /Picture·pexels
His decision was opposed by his relatives and friends, and the reasons given by everyone were almost the same: engaging in Internet-related work not only sounded more respectable, but also made more considerable income, and becoming a coffee drink distributor not only It sounds disgraceful, and the future development situation cannot be predicted.
After much thought, Shen Liang decided to switch from the Internet field to the coffee industry. In his opinion, only turning his interest into a career is the greatest respect for his career. Since then, Shen Liang's job has changed from typing codes every day to distributing coffee drink production equipment and raw materials, and engaging in new product research and development based on market demand. Sometimes he is also responsible for after-sales work of coffee drinks.
Shen Liangâs work involves not only coffee sales but also coffee research and development. /Picture·pexels
Different from what he had imagined before entering the industry, Shen Liangâs daily life was occupied by all kinds of trivial matters, and his idea of ââdeveloping coffee drinks was never realized. The only thing that hasnât changed is his passion for coffee. But he also understood that if he continued to spend a lot of time dealing with tedious matters, he would eventually achieve nothing in the beverage industry. Therefore, after Shen Liang resigned from the company, he began to apply for jobs related to beverage research and development, and gradually became a beverage R&D engineer.
Today, Shen Liang has become a training instructor and interviewer for beverage developers. When interviewing new beverage developers, he always asks them habitually: "Why did you choose to become a beverage developer? Do you really love drinks?"
Super tasters,
canât be good as R&D engineers
After becoming a beverage R&D engineer, Shen Liang found that many people have more or less misunderstandings about this industry. For example, some people think that people with sensitive taste are born to be beverage R&D engineers, but in In interviews, people with sensitive tastes are most likely to be eliminated.
Shen Liang introduced that people can taste thousands of flavors through the taste buds on the tongue. The richer the taste cells in a person's taste buds, the more they can feel the taste stimulation brought by a certain taste. For example, if a dish that ordinary people think tastes just right, if it is tasted by someone with rich taste cells, , it may be too salty.
Adding different amounts of flavor substances to a drink can give you different taste bud experiences. /Pixabay
Rachel Hertz, a tenured professor at Brown University in the United States, proposed in a report on "supertasters" that the burning sensation felt by supertasters when eating foods containing chili peppers is not that of non-sense people. 4 times more likely than ordinary people to feel greasy when tasting sweets and fatty foods.
Shen Liang said that precisely because people with sensitive tastes are much more sensitive to taste than others, supertasters are often not considered when recruiting beverage developers.
But whatâs interesting is that although supertasters are not suitable for beverage research and development, when training beverage developers, many training institutions will focus on cultivating beverage developersâ ability to remember tastes.
Shen Liang illustrates the importance of memory taste with the example of adding flavor substances to water: "During the training, we will add different doses of sugar, salt, citric acid or malic acid and other different flavors to a liter of water. Substances, these substances are added singly or in combination with each other. Students can accurately judge the type and amount of flavor substances when drinking this glass of water, which is crucial to the development of new drinks. They will remember those flavors through repeated attempts. The new taste produced by the combination of substances.â
The deeper misunderstanding is the understanding of the daily work of beverage developers. For example, some people will understand the work of beverage developers as constantly making and tasting drinks, so as to prepare drinks that are suitable for the public. taste. But the fact is that in addition to being responsible for the taste, R&D engineers must also focus on reducing the raw material costs of newly developed beverages, so that the new beverages can gain the favor of more businesses.
On the e-commerce platform, the best-selling product of Shen Liangâs company is a grape juice. Its birth path vividly illustrates the importance of reducing raw material costs for R&D engineers and beverage manufacturers.
In fruit tea drinks, how to reduce the cost of fruit is an issue that beverage developers must consider. /Picture·Pixabay
Shen Liang said that before developing grape juice, he was a loyal fan of homemade black grape juice, and the idea of ââdeveloping grape juice was also related to this. Shen Liang recalled: "I liked Heiti drinks very much at the time, but for a while, the Heiti drinks I liked were removed from the shelves due to various reasons, so I came up with the idea of ââmaking grape drinks. However, Heiti drinks did not It was not suitable as a raw material because the price of Heiti was very high at that time. An ordinary Heiti drink could be sold for about 30 yuan, which was unacceptable to many beverage merchants, let alone their downstream customers. "
In order to reduce costs. , Shen Liang and his colleagues began to screen different varieties of grapes that were popular on the market, but they never found a "black grape substitute" that could not only ensure a similar taste but also achieve low prices.
It was not until seven months later, after trying dozens of grapes, that the grape juice developed by Shen Liang and his colleagues was officially launched. Compared with the Heiti drink that Shen Liang drank before, the grape juice, which sells for more than 30 yuan per liter, can work with other raw materials such as kumquats to produce several cups of drinks that taste close to Heiti.
Beverage research and development is counter-seasonal, and the drinks we drink in summer may have been developed in winter. /Picture·Pixabay
In Dalian , Shen Liangâs friend once opened a cafe, and his store sold orange juice drinks in winter.Shen Liang recalled that at that time, a cup of orange juice in a friend's store was priced at 56 yuan, and a 300ml cup of orange juice required 5-6 oranges. At that time, the price of an orange in Dalian was about 12 yuan.
"This means that the freshly squeezed orange juice produced does not make money. Even if merchants can find direct supply channels to reduce the cost of oranges, the profit from a cup of freshly squeezed orange juice is not considerable, unless this cup of orange juice is produced in the south. "You can enjoy the low fruit prices in the south." Shen Liang said, "If beverage developers want to reduce costs, they must have this regional concept and be able to accurately develop products suitable for the local area based on the consumption habits and taste preferences of people in different regions." Beverages."
Shen Liang also explained the importance of beverage developers to have a regional concept with the regional positioning of " Tea Yan Yuese ": "It has been 7 years since Cha Yan Yuese was born in Hunan, but in addition to In Hunan and a small number of southern cities, it is nowhere to be found in the northern region. This is because Chayanyuese considers the taste of tea rather than the proportion of milk in its production, which makes it difficult for northern customers who prefer milk flavor to accept it. The bright color of the milk drink will stimulate consumers to buy the drink. /Picture·Pixabay
But sometimes, simple "inner beauty" is not enough to make a newly developed drink a hit. Eye-catching colors are also indispensable. Shen Liang once participated in the development of a drink called "Starry Sky Zangzang". This drink requires purple potato flour to be mixed into a puree, mixed with corn flour, and then smeared on the wall of the cup. The color of purple and black is mixed with white. The Huaishan powder added later reflect each other, looking like stars twinkling in the silver ribbons.
Shen Liang said that "Starry Sky Dirty" was developed and put into factory production after repeated polishing. Because the factory's previous orders for beverage production were only four to five thousand boxes a year, the factory boss advised Shen Liang and others to consider it carefully, but Shen Liang Others still insist on placing an order of 100 boxes at a time. As a result, "Starry Sky Dirty" was a great success just three days after it was put on the market. The factory was once in a hurry of raw materials for producing "Starry Sky Dirty".
Shen Liang understands that the success of "Starry Sky Dirty" is closely related to its aesthetic color combination and romantic name.
Fight against high sugar and high calories every day
During the beverage development process, beverage developers need to drink dozens of beverages continuously. /Picture·Unsplash
A good drink often needs to be polished by R&D engineers many times from its birth to the time it is put into the market. This is because there are many factors that affect the taste of the drink. For example, different lemon types will have different aromas and tastes, and the taste of the same lemon will also change depending on the number of times it is beaten.
In order to accurately grasp the impact of different raw materials on the taste when the usage amount, mixture, etc. change, beverage developers often need to taste the same raw material and different raw materials multiple times.
Shen Liang said that when developing grape juice, he and his colleagues labeled the same raw material as A. By controlling the dosage, mixture and other variables, A can be transformed into A1, A2, etc. If raw material A still cannot achieve the desired result after repeated attempts, If the condition is ideal, start testing raw material B. According to the test records, the 26 letters used by Shen Liang and his colleagues to test the grape varieties they tested when developing grape juice could no longer meet the labeling requirements. Later, another 10 letters were added to help record the test results.
"I tried it nearly 50 times, and tried almost all the grape varieties that I could get my hands on." Shen Liang said with a smile that he ate so many grapes during that period that he later thought about grapes when he saw them. Take a detour.
iiMedia Consulting shows that when ordering, more than 70% of consumers will actively reduce the sweetness. /Picture·Pixabay
In addition to experimenting with raw materials, beverage developers are most exposed to drinks with changing ingredient types and portions. Shen Liang rarely takes the initiative to prepare drinks now, and usually evaluates drinks developed by others. When evaluating, Shen Liang would only let the drink slide over the tip of his tongue most of the time without swallowing it. He explained that this was done to reduce physical stress. âWhen evaluating a drink, you donât need to swallow it. You can roughly judge whether the taste is appropriate by circling the tip of your tongue.If all drinks that need evaluation are accepted, the body's functions will suffer from long-term drinking."
Shen Liang said that almost all beverage developers have to face an almost cruel fact: because the body is exposed to high sugar levels for a long time. In this environment, health has become out of reach. He has also seen many cases of beverage developers suffering from diseases due to long-term intake of high-sugar products.
In order to stay healthy, Shen Liang turned himself into a fitness expert. On the fitness software, he set a walking mileage record of more than 700 kilometers in 142 days. A friend was shocked by this data after seeing it, and asked Shen Liang: "What do you do every day, and why do you walk so far?" "
Shen Liang's exercise record on "keep"./Photo provided by the interviewee
This actually comes from his insistence on walking 6 kilometers every day after dinner. Shen Liang said that because he is engaged in beverage research and development, he consumes different foods almost every day He drank a lot of high-sugar and high-calorie drinks, and he suffered from "three highs" because of this. Brisk walking is to help the body burn calories and stay healthy.
Last month, Shen Liang's colleague said with emotion when chatting with him: "Don't. Look at the beverage developers making money, but this money is really made at the cost of your life.
Shen Liang said: âEvery drink that customers drink contains the hard work of R&D engineers. "
