A restaurant in Paris is offering flavours that you can inhale, instead of tasting them physically.

The act of breathing in flavours is known as 'whaffing,' which is being predicted as a futuristic way of eating.

A contraption that resembles a goldfish bowl, called LeWhaf, is wafting smoke of lemon tart flavour, which is being sampled by a food expert.

She says the lemon tart is zingy and fresh. Next, a whaf of tarte tatin fills her mouth with caramel, the Daily Mail reports.

This invention is the brainchild of a Harvard University professor and aerosol scientist David Edwards, aged 49 years.

Imagine a restaurant where, instead of sitting at a table, you walk around, he says.

Instead of eating food, you're breathing it in as you walk from room to room, each with a different flavour. Celery in one. Steak in another. Then pate.

Edwards is adamant that this smoky little bowl will go on sale in France this autumn for less than 85 pounds and quickly catch on around the world.

You can even use it to whaf alcohol. Drinks with strong flavours such as whiskeys work well, explains Edwards. To make it work, you have to pour 50 ml of the drink you want to whaf into a well in the base.

Whaffing food is more complicated. If you want, say, tomato soup, you need to buy a specially-prepared liquidised version of the dish made by Edwards's team, which contains a secret mix of its 'essences'.

To make the machine work, just press the 'on' switch. Within a minute, a cloud of tiny droplets forms in the goldfish bowl.

The cloud can be dispensed from a nozzle on the side of Le Whaf. It then stays suspended inside the glass for a minute before it sinks.

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(Agencies)