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Comment by pawn | Hacker News Reader

I'm amazed at how often I hear "you can't taste the difference" with something that obviously tastes different. Its like a color blind person saying "you can't tell the difference between red and green" instead of "I can't tell the difference". I can taste the difference between and specify about a dozen types of animals. How in the world does anyone think I won't be able to tell a veggie patty or insect patty from any of them?

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There's a difference between thinking you can tell the difference or convincing others that you can tell the difference, and actually being able to tell the difference.

Nowhere is this difference more strikingly demonstrated than in the studies that have been done on wine tasting.[1]

An example from the article:

  Hodgson isn't alone in questioning the science of
  wine-tasting. French academic Frédéric Brochet tested the effect of
  labels in 2001. He presented the same Bordeaux superior wine to 57
  volunteers a week apart and in two different bottles – one for a
  table wine, the other for a grand cru.

  The tasters were fooled.

  When tasting a supposedly superior wine, their language was more
  positive – describing it as complex, balanced, long and woody. When
  the same wine was presented as plonk, the critics were more likely
  to use negatives such as weak, light and flat.

[1] - http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/23/wine-tas...

I keep seeing this kind of thing, but it goes directly against my personal observations. I've seen people blindly identify any number of wines, down to the exact vintage at times. There are people who can do this, I've seen it done.

That is literally what you have to do in order to be a sommelier. That's the whole test! If you can't do it, you don't pass.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sommelier

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2204371/

Except when wine tasters can't distinguish between red wine and white wine with food coloring:

http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2007/11/02/the-subjectivity-o...

http://www.newyorker.com/tech/frontal-cortex/does-all-wine-t...

Except when wine tasters can't distinguish between red wine and white wine with food coloring

This oft referenced study took oenology students and asked them to use adjectives to describe the odors of the wine. The only wines tested were white...and white with food coloring. It is unfortunate that red wine wasn't actually tested, as it would provide an interesting contrast, nor was taste actually tested at all. So as is all that you can go on is that given what appears to be a red wine, students who presumably have motives other than being entirely straightforward use red wine-type terminology.

It is an interesting study, but is not quite the trump card that so many think it is.

Further, it's a little silly how people are taking products with minor taste differences (most beers, wines, ryes, etc, are made with almost identical processes, yielding close to identical results), and then presuming to claim that the same applies to things that are dramatically different. That someone couldn't tell the expensive wine from the table wine does not prove that someone can't tell a beef burger from a veggie burger.

> That someone couldn't tell the expensive wine from the table wine does not prove that someone can't tell a beef burger from a veggie burger.

Well, yes. That's true. Don't confuse my contribution to the topic drift for a rejection of that point.

I think you need to read up on what a sommelier is and what the exam is like. People pass it, and the pass rate is such that it's not due to random chance.

I realize that you have a study that's vaguely related but the two are not the same. Not at all.

What are the credentials of the people on the "wine tasting panel"? I can't find that information anywhere.

http://www.wineloverspage.com/randysworld/pinot02.phtml

"We see something, and we simply presuppose how it's going to smell and taste. We know that apples, for instance, are crisp, sweet and drippy. But if we close our eyes, hold our nose and bite into an onion, chances hard we won't be able to tell the difference because onions are also crisp, sweet and drippy."

It works the other way too, if you want to freak someone out switch the coke/beer in their can with OJ while they're distracted. They will act like they have been poisoned.

Excellent, we can see that subtler differences are harder to identify, and that we can have subjective applications to flavour because humans are biased to like things in proportion to how they expect to.

But I'd put money that every experienced taster was able to deduce in blind tasting the bordeaux from the (insert other wine type??). Indeed as I understand it from watching Frasier there are clubs which do these blind tastings all the time.

In other words. I may tell you this bordeaux is cheap and acidic, but at no point was I mistaking it for a bottle of Rose.

Were these tests blind or double-blind?

Frasier is a television show, I was trying to draw out the story. I know literally nothing about wine having had maybe 6 sips in my lifetime.

A similar argument can be made about confusing two types of potato vs a potato and a parsnip. Yes pleasure is subjective, and taste is to some extent. In general there are limits to this effect.

Yes, I could effectively overcook the taste out of both things, mush them into a texture-less paste, and then stuff them full of enough herbs and spices to mask any semblance of their original flavour. At that point perhaps I've won - but then I'm not sure it meets the claim.

Actually, there have been studies where they put red food coloring in white wine and given it to self-styled experts who could not tell that what they were drinking was not red wine.

I hate this example. It's not blind, it's deceptive. It's funny, but it proves nothing.

I agree with the general inability of wine tasters to discern nearly as much as they believe, just not this particular example.

I went back and looked up the details. It turns out that the protocol was that they were served two glasses of wine, one red, one white. They were actually the same (white) wine. The red wine had (flavorless) food coloring added. Yes, it's deceptive, but this sort of deception is common is psychological studies. I'd say it's fair game in this case.

No it's really unfair and a stunt.

Expecting to taste a red wine and getting a disguised white wine means you're not ready to appreciate a white wine. It's a whole different world so no wonder they found it off.

It would have actually been a better call to stick to white wine, no coloring added, and differentiate only with the label.

> differentiate only with the label

They've done studies like that too, with similar results.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/23/wine-tas...

I'm sure you could find just as many studies proving the opposite. The human nose is not as bad as many people think. I've conducted a little experiments myself together with four or five roommates. We first sampled four different red wines, then going at them 'blind' (not knowing the label) again. Me and a colleague got all four right, the others had two of them mixed up (always the same as I remember). All of us were completely untrained in wine testing. At least we could find good evidence that we were better than random agents, even though to do it conclusively the sample size would have to be larger.

I think when you try to trick somebody into thinking a wine is something different from what it is, that's very much different from saying we can't tell apart wines at all.

There's no question that people can tell one wine from another. But the point is that people's perceptions of wine are as much a function of their expectations as the actual chemistry of the wine. The same thing can be said about insects or veggie-burgers. Yes, veggie burgers don't taste like real burgers. But if people claim that veggie burgers taste worse (or better) than real burgers, that could be as much a function of their expectations as it is the actual flavor.

There have been tests that show people can't tell the difference between 7up and cola - especially when the drinks are served at traditional cold US serving temperatures.

> I may tell you this bordeaux is cheap and acidic, but at no point was I mistaking it for a bottle of Rose.

Oh really?

http://www.newyorker.com/tech/frontal-cortex/does-all-wine-t...

There's a huge difference between telling two wines apart and telling a meat patty and a veggie patty apart. The later is more like being able to tell wine and root beer apart.

The wines were the same: "He presented the same Bordeaux superior wine"

I have no knowledge of or interest in the methodology of this particular study, but I can tell you my own experience: I can, under double-blind conditions, be given four different ages of The Macallan whiskey and correctly identify the year by taste.

I don't know anything about wine, but I can definitely tell the difference between, say, chicken, turkey, beef, and alligator if you made them into sausages. I'd be seriously surprised if I couldn't tell insect apart from any of those.

Mythbusters did a segment testing the claim that many different meats taste like chicken.

http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/tastes-...

I always think this about the soda taste tests, where people say they prefer Coca-Cola, but then prefer Pepsi in the blind taste tests, as if they couldn't taste the difference. They don't taste the same at all...

I've done the Coca-Cola vs Pepsi blind taste test. I could tell the difference. I've also seen other people fail the test when they swore they could tell the difference.

The fact is some people can tell the difference and some people can't. Part of it is training if you devote some time to learning the differences in taste then you will gain some skill. I drink both of those colas roughly about the same amount so I've become acquainted with the taste differences.

Part of it is genetics some people just have more sensitive palates than other. I do in general have a more sensitive nose than many of the others I know so that may be part of it as well.

I would wager though that the majority of the population have neither trained nor have the sensitivity to tell the difference between a lot of things.

I meant my comment more as "as someone who can taste the difference between certain things, it's really hard to imagine what it is like for people who can't" than a general "I can't believe some people can't tell the difference between how some things taste!" I don't think people are lying or stupid or anything else, just that it's hard to imagine. The color-blindness analogy in another comment is apt I think - if you can see color differentiation, it's really hard to imagine not being able to.

Ahhh I totally misread that then. :-)

No, I think I actually mis-wrote.

There's a couple of things going on.

Those taste trsts normally give small sips of the drink. That changes the way you drink it, and that affects the flavour.

They also tend to use colder drinks which also affects flavour.

I did the taste test, mine was rigged. The Coca-Cola was warm and flat, the Pepsi was chilled and recently opened.

The people who picked pepsi got swag, the people who picked coke did not. They didn't hide this at all, they would yell that pepsi was the winner every time someone picked it, and gave them cool stuff in front of everyone.

I probably couldn't consistently tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi in a blind test either, although I generally prefer Coke. However, I will immediately reject any diet soda as the taste of aspartame, which so many say is tasteless, is obvious and disgusting. Other sugar-free sweeteners are less offending, but I can generally taste the difference between HFCS/sugar and an artificial sweetener on the first sip.

I suspect something similar is going on with other taste tests. Different people are sensitive to different flavor profiles.

Not sure what it is, but I have the same reaction when it comes to diet sodas -- with the exception of Dr. Pepper. Not sure if it is the additional spices in it or not, but a number of times I didn't realize I was drinking the diet version.

Dr. Pepper seems to have less aspartame. It's the only diet soda I can drink without gagging (though I'd still normally avoid it). I can still taste it, but it doesn't bother me as much.

Pretty much a moot point since I don't drink much pop to begin with...

Every different brand of sausage patty tastes a little different regardless of the meat(s) used. The real difference with meat and veggie is the texture. Sometimes veggie patties lack umami, but many newer brands have even been able to fix that too.

Based on my experience, it can be hard to tell if a patty is meat or veg if the quantities are small (too small to feel the texture difference).

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