It's also worth noting the criteria against which they are judged... from the wiki article on Smirnoff
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/26/dinin ... .html?_r=0

Marshall wrote:I think people are so influenced by what they see on the counters of the leading shops and by the H-B bandwagon effect that I put very little stock in individual reports of taste differences among grinders.

I find that hard to believe, I have never heard of a single person, that where not influenced by other people.

at least I'm full aware that other have a influence on my purchases, would I have even given the k30 or the k10 a seconds thought, had it not been for high end coffee shops and coffee forums. I pretty sure I would never have purchased any of them, had it not been for all the information available about these grinder and what they bring to the table.

I started to investigate it further after I heard so much about them, that I decided to test it out myself. And I'm pretty sure that the k30 standing in your kitchen, wouldn't have found it way to your home, if it where not for the bandwagon

I just replaced my K10 with my friends Robur. He bought a EK43.
The shots I did with the Robur till now are more clear, less bitter, so more taste than the K10 shots. I am happy.

In a couple of weeks, when the EK43 arrives, we can compare the grinders. I will report!

Bottom line: I don't put sunglasses and baseball caps on my grinders to anonymize before using them at home, and trust my psyche not to be overawed by a brand name when drinking coffee elsewhere.

And that's where you part company from people like Nobel Prize winner Sir Peter Medawar, who used the simple example of blushing as a physical response to a purely mental stimulus.

I don't get into these arguments precisely because I'm not qualified due to lack of experience, so I rely on the judgement of our resident experts. But in my world there are objective scientific truths that are worth pursuing. Gravity, for example, allows my espresso to fall into the cup without the use of Illy's new space-shuttle technology. Blind testing would seem to offer the best glimpse towards the truth in understanding what influences the taste of espresso.

Blind testing still only equates to the opinion or subconscious bias of the people in the group though....
Im not saying it isn't valid , its only valid for the group of people that take part....
I prefer where i can to read and digest and make an opinion where i can on what i try , that opinion only relating to my needs and preferences ...
People can ask what my needs and preferences are .....i will relate them
Its not that i don't trust " one expert or person " to be right al the time , but that i have come to the conclusion that with something so subjective as taste that an opinion in taste by one person or group persons , might not reflect how i taste or what i enjoy......

Taste perception is a funny thing-highly complex and difficult to unpack. We know taste is influenced by myriad factors.

For example, from a genetic/physiological perspective, some people are super tasters with more taste receptors on their tongues. So a person's tasting ability can be more or less sensitive depending on their taste bud composition. That's one factor.

Also, speaking of genetics, research shows we have genetic predispositions to liking or not liking certain foods, flavours etc. I eat almost everything to some degree, except I practically gag and want to die when eating raw celery. I'm convinced this is genetic programming. Another factor.

Also, taste is influenced by experience, memories, and training(expert cuppers). Memory is very powerful. We all have foods or specific flavours/tastes that remind us of something good or bad in our past. How about that candy mom and dad bought for you every Friday for that once a week treat when you were 6 years old? This nostalgia can influence our taste perception. And this can also change over time as we experience new flavours, foods, drinks etc. We acquire likes and dislikes over time, and this changes constantly. And can refine our palate, as in the case of expert cuppers or wine tasters. Yet more factors to deal with.

Also, we know visual cues can affect expectations of taste and ultimate taste perception. There are studies showing something basic like cup colour can influence people's taste of a drink. And try eating a meal on a paper plate with plastic cutlery. Then have the same meal on fine china with sterling silver flatware. Appearance and presentation matters. Another factor.

Then, as we know, the material, weight, construction, and shape of a serving vessel/dish can affect taste. Compare a proper demitasse against a take-out paper cup for espresso. We know which one we prefer. This is not just about appearance or presentation, but about how the cup delivers the espresso to your lips, mouth and palate. How it feels when you drink it. More factors!

Oh and how about your given mood, emotional state, psychological state, the weather, are you listening to music or not?, are you on a medication that affects taste?, are you taking vitamins or supplements?, what else have you just eaten or had to drink?, are you with a bunch of other people nodding and saying this is the best tasting thing in the history of humankind? - and countless other stimuli that could be bombarding your senses when you're tasting something? More and more factors!

I'm not a scientist, so I'm likely overlooking many other possible factors that affect taste.

And in the context of espresso tasting, add all of the above factors to the genuine mechanical and engineering differences among grinders, machines, portafilters (naked and spouted), baskets(size and shape), burrs(size, shape, material), HX vs DB vs Lever (also temp and pressure profile), and the leprechaun at the end of the rainbow.

With all things being equal, this thread is about whether flat and conical burrs produce an inherently different taste in the cup. I'm inclined to accept that they do. The problem is that it's so bloody complicated and difficult to achieve a state of 'all things being equal'. How the hell can we do that when taste is ultimately subjective? Even different people with the most refined palates can't all agree on what they like or don't like.

Ultimately, we're all speaking a unique language(our own), when it comes to taste perception and, hence, taste description. There's no translation service that exists for this purpose. Therein lies our problem.

So, Jim and Rich, I think you're both right. Would it not be better to conduct taste tests that involve both blind AND 'best shot' tasting? Do both. Then see where we land. The results may be surprising, maybe even contradictory. But an 'Either/Or' approach in espresso tasting seems problematic and both have strengths and weaknesses.

***For what it's worth, I have a K10PB and a Vario and pull espresso with both. Sometime I like the espresso better through the K10PB, and sometimes through the Vario. I think this depends on the coffee (I change beans very frequently), along with other factors in preparation etc. But over time, I have noticed a general difference. I do think the Vario mutes the higher notes, and offer less clarity. While the K10PB provides greater clarity and separation, and I get the high notes, as well as the low notes. But the Vario is not in the same class. And none of my comparisons have been tightly controlled. This is just a general observation.

Apologies for the long-winded essay. I think this is a debate that will persist until the end of time.

For example, from a genetic/physiological perspective, some people are super tasters with more taste receptors on their tongues. So a person's tasting ability can be more or less sensitive depending on their taste bud composition. That's one factor.

Also, speaking of genetics, research shows we have genetic predispositions to liking or not liking certain foods, flavours etc. I eat almost everything to some degree, except I practically gag and want to die when eating raw celery. I'm convinced this is genetic programming. Another factor.

Indeed, natural selection, like gravity, is one of the laws we cannot escape. One could argue in fact the the former has much more practical application to the question at hand, that is, how different people perceive flavors. But even people with very different tasting profiles and abilities can educate their palates with hard work, and I believe, develop some consensus of flavor descriptions that could be used to objectively assess grinder performance. It wouldn't be easy, and perhaps it isn't worth the time. But discovering the laws of gravity and natural selection wasn't easy either, and now we know why things fall and why giraffes have long necks.

canuckcoffeeguy wrote:So, Jim and Rich, I think you're both right. Would it not be better to conduct taste tests that involve both blind AND 'best shot' tasting? Do both. Then see where we land. The results may be surprising, maybe even contradictory. But an 'Either/Or' approach in espresso tasting seems problematic and both have strengths and weaknesses.

God yes.

"Blind testing," can be perfected -- pretty much -- by combining blinding with a ton of best shot samples, in an ABX test. You wouldn't even need a large panel size if you were only going for a "which do I really prefer," result instead of a statistical projection.

As a for instance, during the "Beat the Robur" portion of the TGP, Jim preferred low dose shots ground by a Rocky to those ground by a Robur. I have absolute confidence in Jim's description and am very sure that if I were drinking the same samples, I'd have the same reaction. But -- having had a fair amount of experience with both grinders -- am not sure that the Robur was giving its best; moreover, not sure that the Robur wasn't encountering hurdles precisely because Jim was doing his best to anonymize the samples.

And, by the way, when I say, "not sure," I mean "not sure." I don't think I uncovered any great truths or flaws with Jim's conclusions, and I don't intend to minimize his contributions to how we home users perceive grinders. It's just a viewpoint useful for evaluating blind comparison testing.

Yes, it would have been nicer if Jim had found a way to dial in both grinders to a gnat's ass, amd have someone else bring him lots of shots in an ABX (as opposed to an AB) context; then we'd know that both machines were grinding their hearts out -- in the same way we'd be using them at home. But nicest of all was that he did the testing and wrote about what he tasted so clearly.

What the studies with the big panels show (or would show if there were any good ones) is that some percentage of some group prefers one grinder (or one type of grinder) over another by a given margin under whatever test conditions. For instance, a partial result of a such a study might look something like this: 83% of female coffee professionals (200 women panel selected randomly for all factors other than gender, at the Latvian National Jamoke Conference, 2014) who could tell the difference between medium roast coffee ground with an K-30 and coffee from the same batch ground on an E92 to a 70% certainty (+/- 5%) preferred the E92 (+/- 5%).

And, just in case your eyes aren't already rolling toward the back of your head, if the study aimed to project future results, it would require the further qualification of a confidence level.

While methodologically sound, you can see that the utility of results like this are greatly limited by context. But, y'know, context, context, context. Context goes a long way to determining utility. The question for the prospective grinder purchasers, is how or even whether the results apply to him.

Rich

Call me if you guys need project management advice... think I have some to provide after running clinical trials for years...this endeavour sounds like a major undertaking, unless you enroll the university of coffee sciences somewhere and have access to a couple of hundred (More likely thousands as thendifferences are small and there are many confounding factors) trained palates the data base likely will not show anything other than that you likely can say what much scientific articles conclude....further research is required...

+1.

Thanks Marcel,

You elegantly said what I was trying to convey. I didn't go that way in the end, but did some stuff in grad school (forty years ago) along those lines.

Rich