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Thaumatin is a mixture of intensely sweet-tasting proteins extracted from the fruit of a West African plant, Thaumatococcus daniellii. The two major sweet-tasting proteins, thaumatin I and II (TI and TIl), were isolated by Van der WeI and his group at Unilever in 1972. Thaumatin is marketed in the UK by Tate & Lyle pIc as Talln, although the fruit of the plant has been used for centuries by the West Africans as a source of sweetness. It is also sold in Japan. Because of problems with stability, taste profile and compatibility, thaumatin is used primarily as a flavour enhancer, at levels below the sweet-taste threshold.

As a sweetener, thaumatin is used in beverages and desserts, but its applications are limited because of its liquorice taste and delayed sweetness (Gelardi, 1987). In practice, therefore, thaumatin is more commonly used as a partial sweetener, mixed with other more rapidly tasting sweeteners (Higginbotham, 1986).
Despite its limitations as a sweetener, thaumatin is a powerful flavour enhancer, and magnifies spearmint, cinnamon, wintergreen and peppermint by up to ten times. This flavour potentiating characteristic, together with the lingering sweet taste, can be beneficially used for products such as toothpaste, mouthwash and chewing gum, and for enhancing the masking flavours in medicines. Thaumatin also boosts the low sweetness of bulk sweeteners added to sugarless gums, without adding calories or cariogenicity (Higginbotham, 1983, 1986).
Thaumatin has been used in Japan since 1979 in a variety of products, where it has been shown to enhance and improve the flavour of coffee and of milk products. It is thus used in coffee-flavoured products, ice-cream, iced milk drinks-on-sticks, and spray-dried milk powders. It also enhances savoury flavours (Higginbotham et al., 1981; Higginbotham, 1986), and combinations of thaumatin with nucleotides, spices and/or other flavours may be used to replace monosodium glutamate, an ingredient of current concern with regard to safety (Anon, 1987b).