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HOW colour can affect us. This week: It can alter how things taste CHANGING the colour of napkins can alter how our food tastes — aqua blue reduces saltiness, while coral pink increases sweetness, according to research by napkin firm Tork.

Other studies have found similar effects from crockery: a strawberry dessert tasted sweeter on a white plate, while the taste of chocolate intensifies when served in something orange.

‘Our brain mostly relies on past experience to predict what something will taste like, and colour is part of that,’ says Professor Charles Spence, an experimental psychologist from the University of Oxford.

‘So you may associate greens with sour, unripe fruit, but reds and oranges with sweeter tastes, and this alters your expectations even if the colour appears only as part of how the item is served.’