We will make a start on introducing ‘what is tasting’ here - but it’s only a start so all
questions and feedback gratefully received!

Introducing ‘tasting’

Although taste is one of the five senses (taste, smell, sight, touch and hearing), it is relevant to say that you taste also with your eyes and your nose; without smell there is much less flavour (as flavour is determined by both taste and by smell).

Tasting with your sight is a sense that is every bit as complex in the context of tasting as is smell. In fact the the sense of taste, on it’s own, is the least complex.

The fourth sense (touch) is sometimes referred to as mouthfeel or texture, and plays a somewhat lesser role, as does the fifth sense (hearing) ; you will read of people talking about ‘crunch’ or, when evaluating chocolate for example, ’snap’.

Sight is much more important to tasting, and the enjoyment of food and drink products, that you might initially think. Some consider a blind tasting to be the fairest way of assessing a food or drink product, but others think any assessment must be made in light of the products background. As soon as a products background, or heritage or origin, is communicated a significant amount of perceptions can cloud the reality. With clever packaging and marketing, illusions can quickly distort the senses, influencing how the brain normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation.

So we end up with how much we should allow appearance, taste, smell, product history, texture or mouthfeel influence how we evaluate and rate when we are tasting - quite a minefield!

Sight, the background story and traceability

Sight of the product is an important first step in conducting a tasting and comes part-and-parcel with how the product is packaged or presented. If we combine a products background (which in the best cases is traceable, transparent and honestly communicated) it is hard to ignore the argument that any assessment must be made in light of the products background. However the use, or misuse, of words such as artisan, biodynamic, environmental, fairtrade, local, organic, responsible, and single origin varietal can quickly distort and confuse what we are being led to believe is being consumed.

The ’simple’ facts of tasting

The 5 taste sensations are sweet, sour, salt, bitter and “umami” - the last recognised as a pungent taste. However 80-90% of what we perceive as “taste” is actually due to the sense of smell. The same food also tastes different to different people and not only are everyone’s tastes different but your ability to taste changes as you get older.

In addition 1 in 4 people are termed ’supertasters’ - and these people taste things differently; others, on average 1 in 10, are termed ‘non-tasters’, again with a different tasting experience. The term supertaster is really a misnomer as it only means you react differently - supertasters have no general advantages; they are less likely to enjoy, for example, alcohol, brassica such as brussels sprouts or cabbage, coffee, grapefruit juice, green tea, spinach or soy products.

There also exist variations between males and females (females generally exhibit a more developed ability to taste - and are often more sensitive to aromas and odours ) and slight variations are found in some peoples of different race, or from different countries. Women are more likely to be supertasters, as are Asians and Africans.

Here’s a slightly bizarre quick online test for supertasters

The 7 primary odours and the mystery of smell

Flavour is determined mainly by the chemical senses of taste and smell - both being intertwined chemical senses. The paradox of smell is that unlike vision and hearing not only does no one know exactly how smell works, we actually smell things that, according to the basic laws of biology and evolution, we shouldn’t be able to smell.Seven primary smell sensations have been identified:

camphoraceous (scent of camphor or mothballs)
musky (scent of musk), foral (scent of flowers)
pepperminty (scent of oil of peppermint)
ethereal (scent of ether or dry cleaning fluid)
pungent (scent of spices)
putrid (scent of decaying meat or rotten eggs)

but there are, unlike the 5 different ‘tastes’, hundreds of identifiable smells.