Photo/Illutration The “fateful encounter” flavor of the Ren-AI steamed bread developed by NEC Corp. and Kimuraya Sohonten Ltd. (Kanako Tanaka)

While some say that love is sweet and others say it’s bitter, an electronics firm and a bakery announced that they have scientifically analyzed the flavors of romance--and baked them into buns.

NEC Corp. and Kimuraya Sohonten Ltd. said on Jan. 17 that they used artificial intelligence to develop “Ren-AI” steamed bread--its name a play on the words: “renai” (romance) and AI.

“We hope that people’s feeling of love will ferment and grow like the bread dough,” an NEC official said.

The companies used AI to analyze love songs and a romance reality show to see what foods and flavors people associate with the different stages of love.

The bakery then created five flavors--fateful encounter, first date, jealousy, tearful breakup and united lovers--based on the AI’s findings.

For example, the fateful encounter flavor uses cotton candy and apple in the dough to express the sweetness and pounding heart felt when people fall in love. The buns also have a blue crunchy top embodying a surprising, mischievous “twist of fate.”

The jealousy flavor uses purple sweet potato and “zunda” (mashed green soybeans) in the dough to express anxiety through their colors. Added starch makes the steamed bread softer and chewier.

The united lovers flavor uses dragon fruit, peach and honey to create a sweet, melting taste. Its pink color resembles blushing cheeks.

Each flavor is based on Kimuraya’s steamed bread.

The long-established bakery came up with the idea of Ren-AI bread to increase its popularity among young people. It partnered with NEC, which has a strong track record of using AI to develop goods.

But what would an AI know about love?

The developers collaborated with an online romance reality show, “Kyo suki ni narimashita” (Today, I fell in love), which features actual high school students going on dates, to teach the AI what to look for.

They transcribed 15 hours of conversations between the cast members. The AI then analyzed the emotions in each moment, from first meetings to confessions and breakups, quantifying them into 32 categories such as joy, surprise and fear.

The AI also analyzed about 35,000 songs with lyrics featuring food like fruit and sweets. It quantified the emotion associated with each food and identified foods that have the same trend in each category. 

For example, casts in the reality show expressed high amount of surprise and fear when they were jealous. Purple sweet potatoes showed a same trend with those emotions.

Kimuraya eventually decided on the combinations of foods, flavors and colors for each bread.

The special buns will be sold at supermarkets for 200 yen ($1.35), including tax, in and around Tokyo starting Feb. 1.

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