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After a while, the flavor from chewing gum goes away. Sometimes I will add another stick and keep chewing and other times I will swallow and then get another piece (maybe later), but both of these require more chewing gum.

Is there a way to keep a single piece minty or to make it minty again when it's run down on flavor?

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  • 2
    I'm not sure it's possible. From what I've heard, it's not so much that the flavour goes away, but it's the perception that lessens. Flavour is mostly aroma. If you think of walking to a coffee shop, the aroma of coffee is very strong, but after you've been there for 10 minutes, you barely notice it.
    – Dave
    Aug 3, 2015 at 13:23
  • 2
    @Dave If you spit out the gum and pop in another piece, you will find that your perception is not responsible for the lessening of flavor: the new piece will be much more flavorful than the old.
    – piojo
    Aug 6, 2015 at 15:58
  • Don't keep it on your bedpost overnight. Dec 18, 2019 at 20:24

4 Answers 4

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+50

Dip it in some menthol crystals. Use sparingly; they're very strong.

Alternately, just pop a strong mint hardcandy in your mouth and chew it up along with your gum. The fragments will mix with the gum and keep it minty for a little while longer.

Or just stop chewing gum. It's designed to be disposable; if you're expecting it to last, you're doing it wrong. Consider investing in some good flavored toothpicks, which both last longer and help you remove bits of food stuck in your teeth.

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    As an interesting note, I believe menthol is used in cough drops.
    – Justin
    Dec 14, 2014 at 22:46
  • 3
    It's used in pretty much anything that tastes or smells "minty", for reasons that depend on the application. Dec 15, 2014 at 19:41
  • 1
    Menthol is also a decent local anesthetic. That's part of the reason it's used in cough drops; it numbs the throat. Dec 19, 2014 at 1:56
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A Solution:

  • Take a mint or some other candy. Take these and suck on them at the same time you suck on chew the gum and the flavour should come back. Also, take the candy and smash it into pieces and introduce that into your mouth or cover the gum with it.

  • Adding a drop of some flavoured syrup also helps. Or even chewing on mint leaves, but do this on a different side of your mouth. Otherwise your gum will be ruined.

  • Chewing the gum slower helps keep its flavour more, as the saliva that is breaking down the flavour cannot circulate through out the gum as fast. By chewing you are kneading the saliva into the gum.

And there is no way to stop it, it appears.

wonderopolis.org

So why don’t these flavors last? When you chew gum, the saliva (spit) in your mouth begins to digest the sweeteners and flavorings in the gum. Unlike the gum base, the other ingredients can be broken down and digested.

As you swallow while you chew, the digested sweeteners and flavorings move through your digestive system to your stomach. Eventually, you digest all the sweeteners and flavorings, and all you’re left with is the gum base and softeners. That’s when you sense that your gum has lost its flavor.

And something I haven't tried.

Barry - Yes. So Martha’s been chewing some minty chewing gum and I hope by now the mintiness has disappeared.

Martha - Yes and it’s going a bit cardboardy and generally not very nice.

Barry - OK. So now what I’m going to do is I’m going to ask you to take it out of your mouth and roll it in this little mound of icing sugar that I’ve got in front of you and if you just pop that back and have a chew on it.

Martha - Urgh, choking on some icing sugar.

Barry - Tell me how it tastes now. Just keep chewing away for a moment or two. So what we’re really investigating is the way that one sense has an impact on another. So, here we’re talking about how taste might affect smell.

Martha - Mmm…Yeah, so it’s definitely tasting newer again and yeah, the mintiness is coming back.

Barry - So the mintiness has come back and that’s amazing because there is no mint in icing suger. So that’s a strange effect. What you’re getting is the fact that when you combine the sugar with the odour in your mouth, you get something super-additive that’s more than the sum of the parts. You’re not getting them both together, you’re getting the sugar boosting your ability to detect mint and the mint seems to resume its presence.

So apparently rolling the gum in sugar may help.


Additional Info

Wikihow: Make Chewing Gum Last Longer: Put the gum in cold water for a time(I wouldn't do this for very long) and this is suppose give it back the original texture.

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Well, what I do is just dip my gum into some sugar. Or I will take a peppermint candy and chew it into my gum. All works just find.

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What I've noticed is that if I drink water right after chewing gum, the flavor comes back. Could you somehow control this by wetting your tongue or drinking water?

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