If you’ve ever found yourself craving tomato juice at 30,000 feet — despite not particularly enjoying it at sea level — you’re in good company. German flag carrier Lufthansa alone serves nearly 450,000 gallons of the beverage per year, which is even more remarkable considering Germany’s national love of beer. As it turns out, there’s a good reason why so many people have a hankering for V8 on flights: It actually tastes better. This might sound odd, given airplane food’s reputation for blandness, but there’s a scientific explanation for tomato juice being the exception to the rule.
How Altitude Affects Taste
From the pressurized cabins to the constant background noise, nearly everything about flying works against your taste buds to make eating and drinking on a plane a less enjoyable experience than it is on the ground. The low humidity (typically between 5% and 20%) and air pressure in aircraft cabins make both sweet and salty flavors as much as 30% less pronounced, which is why catering chefs typically add much more salt and seasoning to in-flight meals.
But not all flavors are impacted to the same extent. Chief among them is umami, which means “delicious savory taste” in Japanese and includes foods like meat, cheese, and —you guessed it — tomatoes. If anything, the unique conditions of being on a commercial airliner make the taste of tomato juice more pronounced, which may help explain why it’s such a popular choice from the beverage cart.
In-Flight Rituals
Major airlines have devoted a lot of time, money, and effort to understanding exactly how our taste buds work at cruising altitude and adjusting their menus accordingly. Tomato juice is unique insofar as it doesn’t require any fine-tuning. It’s inherently well suited to be consumed in an airplane, whether on its own or as part of a bloody mary. And because the effect that flying has on your taste buds becomes more pronounced the longer a flight is, the glass of tomato juice you get on an hour-long puddle jumper might be even more refreshing than one you have at the end of an international flight.
Habits tend to become self-enforcing after a while, meaning that eventually some people order tomato juice every time they fly. It’s the same reason you might get popcorn every time you go to the movies — it becomes part of the experience, a ritual associated with flying that makes the journey more enjoyable. For other travelers, that ritual might be ordering a ginger ale, as many consider the calming effects of ginger and the carbonation to be soothing on the stomach. But whatever your preference, a note of caution — there’s one drink you (probably) should never order on a plane: coffee.
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