Stop fooling yourself: a better blind taste test that can help you save money

image by tiarescott

Do you have strong preferences for food and drink? One of my friends insists on drinking high end vodka. Another prefers the taste of brand name cereal. And someone else drinks organic milk primarily for its taste rather than for health reasons.

These specialty products can run up to double the cost of generic counterparts. Is it worth it?

There is nothing wrong with spending money for things you love. In fact, it’s completely the right thing to do. The question is, are you really getting value, or are you paying for something that’s just in your head?

I want to share a method that has helped me answer the question. It’s more involved than your basic blind taste test, but its results are also more useful.

I’ve learned that some expensive items are not worth it. Here are some ways testing my tastes has helped me save over $100 per year:

–Buying generic cereal over brand name ($30)
–Selecting mid-tier vodka over exclusives ($50)
–Buying whichever soda brand is on sale ($20)

The point is not that I am saving money by buying cheaper products. The point is I am not settling: I have tested out the products, and I am buying the cheapest version that satisfies my tastes.

Some of you will say that brand names and higher class versions are better, and that you can tell the difference. I think the research is clear that this is not true for the average consumer.

I bet you can’t tell the difference

Most people are fooling themselves. Studies have found that few consumers can accurately identify differences between brands like Coke/Pepsi or Budweiser/Miller. The chemical composition is too similar for most people to distinguish.

If someone wants to delude themselves and spend more money, that’s fine with me. The thing I cannot stand is how people are always over confident in their own ability.

My biggest pet peeve is someone who claims to have tested their skills. The story usually goes as follows. At some point the person asked a friend pour out two samples in unmarked glasses. After tasting, the person identified his preferred item which happened to be his favorite brand.

“Aren’t you impressed?” the person asks me.

Hardly.

The test was too easy: I point out there was a 50/50 chance of guessing correctly by blind luck. I’m no more impressed than if someone were to toss a coin and correctly predict it landing on heads. And yet these people expect me to give them credit for a taste discerning ability based on a weak test.

The point is most people have never really tested their ability. Those who have tested with a simple paired blind taste test are equally unconvincing: the test is not powerful enough.

The way I look at it, if you really think a brand name merits its extra cost, then you owe it to yourself to prove that claim systematically. You should put your tastes to the test and see if you really are spending your money wisely. And that requires a test commonly used in the food industry.

The triangle taste test

Most people associate a blind taste test with a paired tasting. This is the classic test: you have two unmarked samples of A and B, and you have to identify your preferred brand.

This is an easy test to conduct, but as I explained above, it is far too easy to guess right.

The food industry uses another blind test known as a triangle taste test. In this you have three samples: two samples are the same and one is different. The task is to identify which sample is different from the other two.

For example, here is how a triangle test would work with Coke and Pepsi. You would be faced with three unmarked glasses. It might be two Pepsi samples and one Coke, or it could be two Coke and one Pepsi. Either way, your job is to identify which one is different from the other two.

This is a much harder test than the simple paired tasting. For one, it is harder to guess right just by luck. As there are three glasses, you have just a 1/3 chance of guessing the different one.

The test is also harder because you are sampling three times. You often can run into sensory overload and it requires more skill to discriminate between the products. As described in Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink:

With two colas, all we have to do is compare two first impressions. But with three glasses, we have to be able to describe and hold the taste of the first and then the second cola in our memory and somehow, however briefly, convert a fleeting sensory sensation into something permanent

The triangle test is a lot harder than it sounds, and I suggest you give it a try.

So far I have yet to find anyone in my friends passing this test for colas or liquors.

Colas vs colors

Some people tell me the test is stupid. They say I have tricked them by putting things in a particular order, and that’s why they cannot figure it out. Or they say they had sensory overload so tastes got confusing.

The truth is some people do have highly refined palates and they can tell the difference, as sommeliers can do with wine. But most people simply do not have the distinguishing ability.

The matter of fact is the chemical composition of many food and drink products are too similar.

Consider an analogous triangle test for identifying colors. If I handed you three pieces of paper, two colored blue and one colored orange, you would NEVER make a mistake. You could always tell me which one was different. Even if I made the colors closer like navy blue and regular blue, you would have no problem.

Trying to identify Coke versus Pepsi is considerably harder. Discerning these by taste is like trying to identify the difference between the colors saffire and navy blue at a distance of 100 meters. It is possible, but certainly it is not easy.

A blind taste test procedure

If you really want to be scientific, consider this procedure I have adapted from a paper on blind taste tests out of the Haas Business school at UC Berkeley [Word doc].

1. Do a triangle taste test (from a set of 3, where 2 are the same): see if you can identify which one is different. All samples should be in unmarked glasses of the same size.

2. Do a paired blind taste test (comparing brand A and B in 2 glasses) and test which one you prefer the taste.

3. Repeat the paired blind taste test again to test if you liked the same brand two times in a row.

4. If you identified correctly in all three tests, and you still preferred one brand, then you pass.

In other words, you combine a triangle test with two different paired blind taste tests. The triangle test is about seeing if you can distinguish small sensory differences, and the paired tests are about verifying how consistent you are in your tastes.

To pass all three tests is not easy by chance. You have just a 1/12 chance of guessing your way through (the triangle test is a 1/3, and each paired test is 1/2).

The results can be humbling.

In the study cited above, while 65 percent thought they could identify Coke/Pesi, only about 15 percent were able to pass the series of blind taste tests. The conclusion: most people really cannot tell the difference.

Quantify your preference

You should consider a blind taste test when you are comparing products purely on taste with big price differences.

Which taste did you like?

If you liked the more expensive brand, was it really worth it?

I hope you will be able to find ways to save money on brands by tasting them out. In a few years I have tried this I have found time and again that generics are almost the same taste for much less money. I have saved money on food across the board by simply experimenting like a good scientist would.

A caveat about blind taste tests

Now I’ll admit there is a small flaw with this test. Some foods may taste better or the same but not have the same food quality. For example, it might be hard to detect the partially hydrogenated oils in Jif peanut butter versus the natural version. Partly because the non-natural food version is created to mimic the healthier, natural version.

When the primary concern is health, I go with health research as a guide. But most of the time people care about taste, and that is when the blind taste test is very useful.

Have you ever done a blind taste with products?

I will share one of my stories to get started.

One of my own taste tests is that canned beer is equally tasty to bottled beer. Plus, cans are cheaper to produce, the metal is easier to recycle, and the canned seal is better than a bottle cap meaning the beer can stay fresher.

The only problem is that craft beers I like are often in bottles. I am hopeful things will change, and I am excited to read about companies putting their beer in cans. The website Craft Cans has a nice database of beers in cans. Anyway, that’s my short story.

I hope the research on blind taste tests inspires you just as much as it did me.

And if it does, I’d love to hear other stories if anyone out there has done blind taste for their food and drink preferences.