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Sweaty armpits and rotting seaweed are hardly the aromas that would entice you to eat something.

But that's how some people have described the smell of truffles, possibly the world's most expensive edible product. Despite the odour, the flavour of the tuberous underground fungi is highly prized and Australian growers are taking a sizeable proportion of the world market, which had previously been limited to Europe.

Truffles are being produced in several locations in WA's south-west, as well as in Tasmania, NSW, Victoria and the ACT.

UWA's Professor of Food Science, Garry Lee, is keen to protect the Australian truffle industry and uphold its reputation as European buyers look to Australian suppliers for truffles out of (their northern) season.

Professor Lee is collaborating with Associate Professor Hannah Williams from Curtin University's school of public health on a project to develop a quality scale for truffles, based on aroma.

They and Honours student Kenny Choo hosted seven of Perth's top chefs last month at UWA's Boatshed, who helped the team with descriptors.

"What defines the truffle is its aroma," Professor Lee said. "But we didn't have the descriptors to create a definition accepted and put into practice across the industry."

The chefs, Russell Blaikie from Must, Matt Stone from Greenhouse, Brad Leahy from Blue Waters Grill, Stephen Clarke from Clarkes in North Beach, Nathan Le from Lamonts, Peter Manifis from Oncontro, and Robert Withnell from Globe Wine Bar, Parmelia Hilton, were happy to help.

"It is in their interest to have a standardised quality scale," Professor Lee said. "They could be paying more for big smooth truffles that look good, but don't have top quality flavour. And the growers benefit too. A standard scale based on aroma will mean they will be paid fairly, not paid less for a truffle that is smaller or more knobbly, when it's actually top quality.

"We also want to ensure that Australian truffles are held in high regard in Europe. So if we can develop a standard system for ranking high, medium and low grade truffles, the Europeans will know they can trust us."

The chefs started their morning's work by inhaling samples of different vegetables and describing the aromas, to standardise their language. They then sniffed truffles from Manjimup, Bridgetown, Pemberton, Orange, Canberra and Tasmania, using agreed-upon descriptors for each sample.

They included forest floor, hay and soy sauce, with wet dog and ammonia used to describe the lower grade truffles.

Truffle growers were put through the same paces the next day. From these two sets of descriptors Professor Lee and his team aim to train volunteers, with highly-developed sensory perceptions, to sniff out the key ‘desirable' aromas.

"Once we can identify an ‘aroma profile' we can use this to grade truffles," Professor Lee said.

Funded by the Rural Industries Research Development Corporation, the researchers are using the latest technology (solid phase micro extraction head space gas chromatography mass spectrometry) and sensory science techniques to accurately identify the chemicals that make truffles so desirable to leading chefs.

"In order to develop reliable aroma grading models, it is necessary first to understand the relationship between the volatile profiles of truffles and the aroma quality," Professor Lee said.

The Australian industry consists almost exclusively of the French Black Truffle (Tuber melanosporum) which grows underground on the roots of oak and hazelnut trees.

First produced in northern Tasmania in 1999, the industry now includes more than 200 growers across six states and the Australian Capital Territory with one of the biggest emerging regions in Manjimup.

For Australia to take advantage of the European market, it must ensure that its truffles are of the highest quality for export. Poor quality truffles have the potential to cause irreversible damage to its reputation.

"This research will also help us to determine how long a grade A truffle stays at its peak," Professor Lee said. "We don't know this now, but when we do, it will have implications for handling, packaging and storing."

Published in UWA News , 8 August 2011