Why should taste be subjective when sight isn't? - Page 4

by **zin1953** on Thu Apr 23, 2009 11:16 am

HB wrote:good sensory judges can distinguish between their personal preference and a well-explained standard of an exceptional espresso

Again, an example from wine judging: One of my least favorite wines from California is off-dry blush wines (think "White Zinfandel"), yet I personally love dry rosé. These are my personal preferences, but as a professional judge, I still NEED to be able to taste blush wines, to be able to distinguish a well-made example from a flawed one (or even one that is merely "good"), and to be able to score the wines as objectively as possible. (See my final paragraph below.)

coffeefrog wrote:This (Dan's comment above) reads like standards trumping personal preferences, and that makes me nervous, whose preferences are being encoded in the standards?

Herein lies the rub. You have every right to be nervous, BUT . . .

Yet again, because I judged wine professionally for over a quarter of a century, it's easier for me to illustrate this using examples from the wine trade . . . and, hopefully Greg, you know something of Australian wines.

Barossa Valley Shiraz is quite different in character than the Shiraz from the much cooler climate found in the WA's Margaret River, so tasting a Peter Lehmann Barossa Valey Shiraz will be a very different experience than tasting a Vasse Felix Shiraz from the Margaret River. Both can be excellent. Yet there is little doubt that the majority of the world, when asked to describe the "typical" Aussie Shiraz, thinks of and describes an example from the Barossa. In a sense, that is the "encoded standard."

So, too, is the "big, over-blown Cabernet Sauvignon filled with gobs of hedonistic fruit" -- to use the cliché that describes the wines (seemingly) favored by the American wine critic Robert Parker.

This does not exclude a Vasse Felix Shiraz, or a more elegant, leaner California Caberent, from getting high marks from judges or critics.

In the world of coffee, some people may not (as an example) prefer the intensely dark roasts popularized in this country by Alfred Peet (see Peet's). They may prefer the lighter roast known in some circles as "Northern Italian." Indeed, despite the popularity of Starbuck's, I would imagine (not being a professional coffee judge) that more professionals prefer the lighter Northern Italian/Ticino roasts -- the exact opposite of "Charbux." Yet a judge needs to be able to evaluate all sorts of coffees . . .

This would apply, too, to evaluating blends which are all Arabica as well as those containing varying levels of Robusta. Or, despite a personal preference towards espresso made from a blend, a judge must still be able to evaluate SO coffees. Indeed, to be able to appreciate the distinctions between (e.g.) a true Kona coffee and a true Mocha from Yemen . . .

There may be an "encoded standard" that objectively describes (or attempts to describe) the perfect espresso, or that describes the perfect Mocha from Sa'ana . . . but the evaluation is made by individuals with different and distinct taste buds in their mouths, not by a computer or unfeeling, unseeing scientific instrument. And thus, IMHO, it is impossible to eliminate all subjectivity.

Cheers,
Jason

by **zin1953** on Thu Apr 23, 2009 11:20 am

sweaner wrote:The tongue can only taste 4 tastes. The rest of the taste experience comes from olfaction. Just talk to someone who has lost the sense of smell.

Whether it's sweet, sour, salt, and bitter, or one accepts the so-called "fifth" taste (umami*), you are absolutely right: it's all in the nose -- we can distinguish over 10,000 different olfactory scents, and even this pales in comparison to dogs . . .

Cheers,
Jason

* FWIW, the fifth taste is universally accepted within the wine world.

by **misterdoggy** on Thu Apr 23, 2009 11:42 am

Wow, what a diverse discussion

Who would have ever thought coffee would bring Aristotle and Plato in to coffee tamping techniques :mrgreen:

Well here's a thought. Drinking California French Wines and Drinking the same wines with French Origin

Did you guys know that there are lots of Roasters in Italy, who make "Italian Blends" and try comparing them to American Roasters take on Italian Blends.

For instance this Well known roaster in Torino with Outlets in many towns in Italy ??
http://www.caffepalio.it/contatti.htm

I wonder how their Italian Brand compares with American Roasters of so called Italian Brands ??

What would the Italians think of YOUR taste buds ?? hmmmmm

We always talk about Italy as the "source" for inspiration of good Cappuccino's or Caffe Latte after all they were invented in Italy. And Italy Coffee machines are the best.

by **another_jim** on Thu Apr 23, 2009 1:25 pm

coffeefrog wrote:I was rephrasing another_jim. Wittgenstein was a bit like that in his early years, but he got over it.

{start OT}
I think the older Wittgenstein was wrong as often as the young one. It's just as implausible for an infinite number of carpenters asking for an infinite number of hammers to get a performance of Hamlet, as an infinite number of traffic judges pointing at an infinite number of toy cars getting the text. In essence, he went from being an eggist to being a chickenist in things linguistic.
{end OT}

But he did get one thing right in his 2nd phase, when he insisted there was no such thing as a private language. If preferences are indeed private and subjective, then the Romans had it right with de gustibus non disputandem, and we are wasting our time discussing espresso. If we are not wasting our time, and preferences can be discussed, then they are not private or subjective.

So the productive argument is not about standards versus no standards, but about which (or whose) standards. For coffee, I'm recommending a standard based on skill and effort all along the supply chain. But I'd be happy if people used any standard of their choosing as consistently and clearly as possible rather than just reporting their raw likes and dislikes.

by **itsallaroundyou** on Thu Apr 23, 2009 1:27 pm

another_jim wrote:That doesn't mean that good bridge players are better than poor ones or old maid players, but it does mean they are enjoying themselves more.

that's quite the assumption to make, and i think it gets at the heart of the "problem" here. how is this statement founded? evidence or assumption? i know you're not trying to sound elitist, but dang if that doesn't sound elitist. if you swap "better" and "enjoying themselves more", the statement sounds more reasonable.

the "problem" as i see it, is that connoisseurs can never believe that other people don't cherish the (fill in the blank) they do. but to go as far as to say that they don't enjoy themselves as much as the skilled/experience/refined person is just plain crazy. i'm terribly uncompetitive at games and sports, but i have a GREAT time while losing badly. but you're saying if i played against a skilled player, i would enjoy myself less than the other person? i don't think anyone has the right to claim that in general, unless you are secretly hiding an Enjoyometer

another_jim wrote:Again, to say "I like it because of MY preferences," is to say "thou shalt not question what I do."

this is probably only true for the people you claim are "tasting correctly." if someone likes one food over another, there is a reason, whether or not they can explain in your vocabulary---it 's because it tastes good to them. maybe if you just asked them why they thought it tasted good, you wouldn't see it as a cop out on refining their palate. most of us would probably be happy to explain why we like something.

you obviously have a very refined palate for coffee, and you have friends that do too, and it seems you want everyone to share in the enjoyment you get from good coffee and be able to communicate it.
maybe the thing to do is stop claiming people are tasting incorrectly (because that can never be proven), and instead give them the tools to describe what they are tasting. i wouldn't assume that i could talk to you in a meaningful way about the flavor of espresso any more than i could speak a foreign language to a native speaker. but if i said, hey this tastes nutty, then you can say, well is it almond, hazelnut, etc.....then the conversation can start in a meaningful way.

Bluecold wrote:I can't take people who believe japanese people have magic tongues capable of tasting 5 flavours and that every taste is a combination of 5 flavours serious.

if its any help on this matter, peoples of cultures that have diets composed highly of starch (i.e., rice) produce significant more of the enzyme amylase then people that don't, which might account for tasting things differently.

by **itsallaroundyou** on Thu Apr 23, 2009 1:44 pm

another_jim wrote:If preferences are indeed private and subjective, then the Romans had it right with de gustibus non disputandem, and we are wasting our time discussing espresso. If we are not wasting our time, and preferences can be discussed, then they are not private or subjective.

i smell a logical fallacy (though its been over 10 yrs since my logic course!)....if our time is well spent discussing trivial (private and subjective) matters, doesn't make those matters any less trivial (public and objective), it just means we like wasting our time

someone please correct me if i'm wrong on this

by **ManSeekingCoffee** on Thu Apr 23, 2009 1:56 pm

I'm not quite sure where to jump into this fray, but here's my attempt.

First of all, we have to distinguish certain objective factors involved. There are or are not certain chemical properties of the coffee, and different individuals have varying biological capacities to register these qualities. What this means at a basic level is that there are different flavors in the coffee (whether we want to talk salty, sweet, sour, bitter and umami or some other descriptors) and some people will be more or less able to detect and describe both the components and their balance.

Second, different people have different levels of training and experience to detect all of these different and very objective qualities of the coffee. So we might have well trained individuals with less biological capacity better able to detect these qualities than an untrained person with lots of biological potential. But of course, biological capacity being equal, training does matter.

Putting those two issues aside, assuming we have a group of people with more or less equal capacity and training, they should be able to identify the various flavor components and overall balance of those components of a given coffee, more or less in agreement.

Separate from that, is whether they LIKE those flavors or combination. One person may enjoy blueberries, while another doesn't. One person may like chocolate covered bacon, while another finds it repulsive. It's more complicated than this of course. Sometimes, I like like blueberries and sometimes I don't. It depends on a number of things such as what they're paired with, my mood, the people I'm with, the music I'm listening too, how much I've had them recently, etc.

But yet another point, that I think has been suggested here, but not discussed much is that people can also recognize what most people like. They can also recognize what most learned people like. OR they can arbitrarily come to an agreement about the things they all like and make that a standard. Of course, it might also be the case that someone doesn't like something but wants to be a part of that group so badly that they convince themselves to like it. Regardless, there is some ability to set a standard and recognize whether something meets that standard whether you like it or not.

All of these elements come into play when tasting coffee. When I'm at home or think about what I want, it's usually more of a subjective reckoning with what I'd LIKE at that moment. When I write my blog or what I think is happening with judges at competitions is more of the latter - an agreement about whether a coffee meets certain agreed upon standards. Of course these standards are always shifting and changing (and being heavily discussed on the internet). I think though that these last two points, LIKES vs. AGREED upon standards are probably one of the biggest areas of conflation and confusion around coffee taste.

by **EricL** on Thu Apr 23, 2009 1:58 pm

Cogito ergo Mmmm.

by **Grant** on Thu Apr 23, 2009 2:02 pm

itsallaroundyou wrote:i smell a logical fallacy (though its been over 10 yrs since my logic course!)....if our time is well spent discussing trivial (private and subjective) matters, doesn't make those matters any less trivial (public and objective), it just means we like wasting our time

someone please correct me if i'm wrong on this

If you went out and polled 1,000,000 people at complete random, I would guess the VAST majority would think spending thousands of dollars on equipment in the search for great espresso (and the discussions around it) are a complete and total waste of time.

Probably the same as asking people if spending 100,000 on a car is worthwhile (and talking about fine automobiles).

by **Bluecold** on Thu Apr 23, 2009 2:18 pm

sweaner wrote:The tongue can only taste 4 tastes. The rest of the taste experience comes from olfaction. Just talk to someone who has lost the sense of smell.

Yes, true. But since most people taste with their tongue and nose it is ridiculous to claim that their are only 5 different flavours. I do not know anyone who lost their sense of smell.

by **zin1953** on Thu Apr 23, 2009 2:31 pm

Bluecold wrote:Yes, true. But since most people taste with their tongue and nose it is ridiculous to claim that their are only 5 different flavours. I do not know anyone who lost their sense of smell.

UC Davis does. They used to run tastes with people who, for one reason or another, medically LOST their sense of smell -- possibly as a result of a brain trauma (say from a car accident), a birth defect, surgery, etc. That's why they make a distinction between "taste" and "flavor by mouth" -- the former combining the five tastes possible via the human tongue and the 10,000+ via the olfactory tract, while the latter is just what is says.

You can do a poor imitation of this by serving a blindfolded individual truly "ice cold" Coke® and 7-up® -- they are very difficult to tell apart! Even more so, when the subject has a cold . . .

Cheers,
Jason

by **Yeti** on Thu Apr 23, 2009 2:39 pm

Bluecold wrote: I do not know anyone who lost their sense of smell.

Lost mine for ~3 years, NOT FUN. Might as well have consumed nothing but water and cardboard as the nuances in food & beverages long gone... :cry:

by **shadowfax** on Thu Apr 23, 2009 3:14 pm

This just keeps getting more thought-provoking. I wanted to post a couple thoughts that are in large part rearrangements of thoughts that have already been expressed.

It seems like there's a lot of confusion and disagreement about whether this or that conclusion is a value judgment, and a resistance to 'establishing standards.' Another thing that perplexes me is people arguing about a lack of objectivity in taste because of humans' genetic variations in tasting ability, as well as taste 'experience.'

Most of the comments that 'resist' the 'objectivity' of taste come off as totally uninteresting to me--they simply belie different understandings of what objectivity really means. Objectivity is a philosophically loaded term, naturally, and that's led us into a very philosophical discussion. It seems more useful to side-step that discussion and just say--I agree with Jim, and I agree with Chris. And most of the rest of you... because I don't really care about objectivity, I only care that I know, and I think most of you know, that taste, like sight, is a common perception, and that even though there are all these limitations that have been pointed out in both perception and the language used to communicate it, the human race persists in perceiving and communicating quite effectively. Limitations, misunderstandings, blah, blah, blah the human condition. It's not that it's unimportant to deal with these issues, but at some point we just get hung up on them and it's best to just live with your assumptions and debate the issue at hand, rather than the validity of your assumptions.

The thing that I draw from this discussion, which I find really compelling, is the importance of learning the language of taste. That's what I enjoy reading Jim talk about, denouncing a culture where "I like" is a rationale for anything: that's acceptable in the sense that I have no plans to stop you, but don't expect me to talk to you or respect your opinions if that's all you have to say. "I like" arguments are simply shouting matches that are characteristic of the culture du jour. But bare preference is useless to me, like a language with only verbs--You can communicate action, but you can't get anywhere.

What I'm getting at in terms of the discussion is, right and wrong, good and bad need not play into this argument for my interests. It's natural for people to use that language when they talk about things that are close to their, but you'll get a lot more out of an argument if you simply argue against someone's point rather than criticize them for thinking that it's exclusively 'right.' When you join the opinion police (You can't say that categorically, it's just your opinion), to some extent you've simply become captain obvious.

I experience new things in coffee (and life) in large part because of what is communicated to me by others--people who know how to communicate their experience using language. Whether or not they appreciate their experience more because they understand it better, that's not so important to me (so I'm not going to argue with Jim on that point). *I* appreciate coffee more as I've understood it better, so his argument resonates with my personal experience--which doesn't determine whether he's right or wrong; but, with that perspective on where Jim's coming from, I can understand what he says in that light. Ultimately, the work of Jim, Andy, Chris, and so many others on this forum to understand coffee taste and communicate their understanding is what's been profoundly good for me in my own exploration of the coffee world. These guys are incredibly opinionated, and their opinions are hardly aligned, but I find a greater understanding of coffee after I read what they have to say, in particular during the most heated disagreements. And no matter what anyone else's perspective is, that's what I find useful--as opposed to people who love "extra bold" coffee, and who review equipment that they've owned for a week--5 stars or 1 star, of course.

I'm probably getting as repetitive as Ayn Rand by now, but I wanted to clarify that, for myself, and, in my opinion, the Home-Barista.com forum, taste communication is paramount. It's been said before, but that's why we're all here--finding badass coffee, and rendering it in the best way possible in our cup. We find each other on this forum not because our tastes are implicitly similar, but because we want to talk about coffee. And what use is that if we don't have a good language to communicate about it? Standards are necessary, inevitable, inevitably flawed, and inevitably incomplete, and that's fine when you understand that they aren't set in stone and they aren't the law, they're simply another tool of communication.

At least, that's my take.

by **misterdoggy** on Thu Apr 23, 2009 3:16 pm

I do not know anyone who lost their sense of smell.

I lost my sense of smell after a Bicycle Crash and Concussion. However, like a blind man increase his other sense's you do make some corrections for taste. My tastes changed and adapted with a new range of smells and tastes.

I can smell some flowers (roses for example) but not all smells.

I can taste a good cup of Moka Harara and appreciate it 1000%

by **another_jim** on Thu Apr 23, 2009 4:34 pm

ManSeekingCoffee wrote:First of all, we have to distinguish certain objective factors involved ....

... Separate from that, is whether they LIKE those flavors or combination.

It is good to initially distinguish between skills, either innate or acquired, and enjoyment. But go to any human services department or occupational psychologist and one of the fundamentals of the business is that skills and enjoyment go together. People who like doing something tend to be or become good at it; and people who have an aptitude for something tend to come to like it.

This also applies to sensory activities like tasting, or spectating, etc, where ones enjoyment leads one to acquire a better discernment of the details and process.

So again the analogy with sight:

Five hardcore football fans will tend to agree on the play they just saw. What the play was, who screwed up, who excelled, who was in what part of the field, who should have been in what part of the field, etc, etc. In sum, they have acquired a high level of discernment. Five people who never saw the game in their lives will see only a few chaotic seconds of a seemingly frenzied crowd. This is independent of which teams the people support or what sort of defensive and offensive style they most like to see. The experts will also agree who the great players are, although in this case team loyalties will color their rankings. The people who never saw football will not know the names of any players, teams or plays.

The same growth in discernment and knowledge is true of watching and hearing movies, dance, theater, art, music, and all the other things we love and pay to attend.

So why should the idea of expert taste in coffee be so odd, or that enjoyment of coffee and expert taste go together? I think the analogy to spectating is compelling: it's the opposite idea is bizarre, that the discernment and judgment of a complete tyro is just as correct as that of someone who gives a great deal of time and passion to the activity.

I think our disputes come from something else: I've mistakenly talked about "mass consumption" when I should have been talking about the sheer quantity of idle preferences

If I can't find the flavor of soft drink or gum I like, I won't spend five minutes to get the one I want, instead I'll just grab something else that is at hand. My preferences in these cases exist, but are idle, that is, so small that they aren't worth much time or effort.

Now, most of our preferences are idle. It may be polite and democratic to say our opinions in these idle matters counts as much as those of experts, but they actually don't. We don't spend as much time or money on our idle preferences as on our passions, so it doesn't have as much impact (individually) in the market. Nor will anyone seek out our advice on stuff we neither know nor care about.

The rub is there's a whole lot more stuff out there we don't know or care about than stuff we do. So it hurts to be told that our opinions on this vast majority of the material and artefactual world are trite and ineffectual. But I for one am happy about having to be ignorant about almost everything. A world about which I was expert in all matters would have to be very small and dreadfully impoverished.

by **Psyd** on Thu Apr 23, 2009 4:56 pm

Bluecold wrote:It never escaped us. The four flavour thing is a fairytale. People telling you about that japanasians have got 5 flavours are just trying to impress you with their AWSUM knowledge about foreign cultures.
The only thing "umami" is good for is that it's a telltale to spot impressionable idiots.
For example, 'fishy' is a very definite flavour. Fishy isn't sour, bitter, sweet, or salt or even umami. It's just fishy.

I'm also a bit curious about where this came from.
In a conversation about objectivity vs subjectivity, this sounds like an opinion based on ignorance of the science involved. 'Fishy' may well be something that you are unable to distinguish with your tongue, and may not fall into any of the five categories (I prefer 'savoury' over 'umami', but that is just a preference of mine).
The five taste buds' sensory chemistry is fairly well documented, studied, and accepted by the present day scientific community. If your research shows something different, perhaps you should publish.
You could go look at this explanation, which is pretty good for a non-technical, but still scientific explanation, published in Kimbal's Biology.
Other good sources are the Journal of NeuroChemistry, the Journal of American Medical Association, the Journal of Electron Microscopy, and Chemical Senses.

by **GVDub** on Thu Apr 23, 2009 5:13 pm

I think that one of the biggest stumbling blocks here is a semantic one. Taste can mean preference, it can mean sensory input. The sensory input can be divided into nasal olfactory and lingual olfactory vectors. That sensory input and preference can both be strongly affected by cultural factors (I have Filipino friends who love balut. I'm an adventurous eater but you wouldn't catch me in the same room with the stuff. For me and my cultural background, it's just too icky). You can develop objective measures of balance for lingual and nasal factors, but, since everybody's tastebuds are configured differently through the twin forces of genetics and environment, how much meaning will those standards have?

by **Bluecold** on Thu Apr 23, 2009 5:15 pm

The whole 5 flavour thing only works for a person who hasn't got a working nose. Since most people have got a working nose, it is only of use for the medical people trying to figure out how this whole 'body' thing works.

It's like the highschool physics where you have to calculate how fast a block decelerates because of friction without considering moments. You get a good grade if you give the answer the teacher expects, but you've calculated nothing useful.

by **Psyd** on Thu Apr 23, 2009 6:07 pm

I'm sorry, but that isn't what the medical and scientific community agree on as a whole.
I'm not sure where the data and information that you're passing on comes from. Could you cite some sort of source for that? I've seen the scientific *AND* medical communities get successfully refuted before, so I'm not saying that either or both are irrefutable, but I should like to see something other than a post on a coffee forum before I'm quite ready to abandon that particular position, and go off like a Krishna to the airport.
Like I inferred, we're aware of your opinion, we just want to know how you arrived at it.

by **zin1953** on Thu Apr 23, 2009 6:18 pm

Bluecold wrote:The whole 5 flavour thing only works for a person who hasn't got a working nose. Since most people have got a working nose, it is only of use for the medical people trying to figure out how this whole 'body' thing works.

At the risk of being repetitive, no -- this is a universally accepted truth, not only in the world's scientific and medical communities, but among professionals in the wine- and beer trades around the world (winemakers and brewers with and without scientific training, as well as among professionals in the wine trade including those with ZERO scientific background -- just experience).

Cheers,
Jason


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