Would you like some Taylor Swift with your spring rolls? Study identifies songs that make food taste better... but Justin Bieber ruins it all

Taylor Swift's Blank Space is the perfect match for your Chinese takeaway, while you might want to blast some Pavarotti when consuming pasta, but if you are listening to Justin Bieber, it is best to stop eating completely.

Professor Charles Spence, an experimental psychologist at Oxford University, has found that some music genres can make specific foods taste better.

He has even suggested that food takeaway service could start including CDs in their deliveries to help enhance the experience for their customers.

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Taylor Swift's Blank Space was found to be the perfect match when eating Chinese food, according to a new study. The research found some music genres can enhance the taste of a meal while others seem to have a detrimental impact on the experience. (Taylor Swift singing in Montreal is pictured)

Professor Spence, who studies the future of food and eating as a multisensory experience, carried out his new 'gastrophysics' study on 700 volunteers.

The subjects ordered different kinds of takeaway food while listening to six music genres.

They were then required to rate their meal - on a scale of one-to-ten.

The results revealed the volunteers judged their food as tastier when it was paired by certain kinds of music.

Volunteers ate different kinds of  food while listening to six music genres before rating their meal on a scale of one-to-ten. They results indicate that the participants found their food as tastier when it was paired with certain kinds of music (stock image of couple eating Chinese takeaway pictured)

While in some cases the food-music associations looked mainly geographic - Italian pasta was found to be best paired with operatic piece Nessun Dorma, or Vivaldi's classical music - other links were less obvious.

Indie rock music of the like of Arctic Monkeys, for instance, was found to be the best complement for Indian spicy food, while Jazz turned out to be the ideal match for sushi and Thai cuisine.

Pop-stars Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift were found to enhance the taste of Chinese dishes, while dance and hip-hop music were rated quite unpalatable, having no effect or even impacting negatively on how the food was perceived. 

Justin Bieber’s Baby had a detrimental effect on the enjoyment of pretty much every dish.

The findings dovetail with previous research showing that, while loud music numbs the ability of our taste buds to detect salty and sweet, high-pitched, fast-paced or dissonant music can emphasise the sourness of certain foods, such as Chinese sweet-and-sour sauce.

Justin Bieber’s Baby had a detrimental effect on the enjoyment of pretty much every dish sampled in the study (the Canadian singer is pictured performing in Dubai). Dance and hip-hop music were also rated quite unpalatable, having no effect or even impacting negatively on how the food was perceived

Spiciness is brought out by fast, arousing music as four per cent of Spence's subjects reported food tasted hotter when listening to rock music than when listening to jazz.

Professor Spence described this effect as  'digital seasoning.' 

'Most of us believe that we experience food primarily through sense of taste, smell, and vision, but a growing body of research now shows that the music playing in the background can also have an influence,' he said in a press release.

He also told The Times that JustEat - the food-delivery company that commissioned his study - was 'seriously thinking' about providing music CD together with food.

Professor Spence has already provided his advice to food industry's professionals in the past, working with Fat Duck's celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal and Spanish chef Ferran Adrià.

Some of Professor Spence's past studies have revealed some wines are best enjoyed with matching music, and the kind of music chefs listen to can influence the way they season their dishes.