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Scientists have discovered that an orange or cream-coloured cup definitely makes chocolate taste better, while a white or red cup will not enhance the flavour. The discovery demonstrates once again that our taste buds are definitely influenced by the colours our eyes perceive.
Published in the Journal of Sensory Studies, the research by scientists at the Polytechnic University of Valencia and Oxford University involved 57 participants. They had to taste the same type of hot chocolate in cups of four external colours—white, cream, red and orange—and white interior. The results were clear: all of them thought the chocolate in the orange and cream cups was better than the others, even while it was the exact same type. Some even said that the chocolate in the cream cups tasted sweeter and was more aromatic.
We already knew that the colour of food itself may affect our perception of taste. A spicy meal, for example, will be perceived as hotter than the same food if it’s more red. We also knew that containers themselves may affect the flavour but the relationship is still not well understood. There are no common rules, and changes depend on the food itself, says Betina Piqueras-Fiszman, one of the authors of the study:
The colour of the container where you serve food and drinks can enhance some of its attributes, like flavour and aroma. There’s no fixed rule to tell which colour enhances what food. This varies depending on the type of food but the truth is that the effect is there. Companies should pay more attention to the container because it has a lot more potential than what you imagine.
The same team has conducted other experiments that confirm all this. One showed that strawberry mousse tastes more intense and sweet in a white plate as opposed to a black one. Soda and lemon-based beverages are more refreshing and lemony in a blue can, while those in pink vessels are perceived as sweeter (which explains Tab). Coffee is affected too; a brown packaging makes its taste stronger and more aromatic, while red makes it less strong and yellow or blue make it smoother. [El Mundo—In Spanish]
Image by Brandonht/Shutterstock
And it’s time for another episode of ‘Jesus’s Bullshit Weekly’!
What part of “Published in the Journal of Sensory Studies, the research by scientists at the Polytechnic University of Valencia and Oxford University involved 57 participants…” do you not understand?
Alright, fair enough, you got me, I just wanted to be mean to Mr. Diaz.
Naughty step. 10 minutes.
How much of this is down to volunteers being made to discern a difference where there is none? By which I mean, if you were sat down and told to judge which coffee was the best, you would first assume they were all different. So surely this is only a relative effect that you notice if you pay lots of attention?
I know that seems like a strange thing to say, but I’m suggesting that the conclusion of colours making a difference might be something extra people consider when they at first can’t tell the difference between them.
Well clearly they don’t actually change the taste. It’s not like blind people would notice.
Perhaps I wasn’t as good at explaining as I thought. I was saying that in normal circumstances perhaps people wouldn’t actually take colour into account, but it was the added pressure of having to evaluate and think carefully about same-tasting coffees that allowed the colour cues to become important. To me, that instinctively makes more sense, I was wondering whether they had considered it in their experiments.
If that were the case then the choice of which was best ought to be more random. The fact that they all picked the orange cup suggests it wasn’t simply having to decide a random best one, OR at the very least that orange makes people think of a premium product so is still valuable information. Of course 57 isn’t exactly a large sample size.
That was one of the discussion points in their article. (hopefully they don’t mind me quoting)
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A possible explanation for the observed results, that did not meet our expectations, is that despite the fact that certain colors are associated with specific sensory product characteristics due to the consumer’s previous knowledge (i.e., redness being paired with sweetness), when it comes to consuming a product from another category (not fruit, but a hot chocolate beverage) from a colored container, those associations do not necessarily hold true. Based on the results reported here, it might be the case that for chocolate drinks, a dark-cream colored cup/mug would enhance the perception of sweetness, while an orange one would intensify its flavor, consequently being more liked. Of course, one must also allow for the possibility that any effects of color might be driven by a consumer’s familiarity with a certain brand, should it be associated with a particular color (cup), say. Relevant here is the fact that different vending companies tend to use different colored cups/sachets for their chocolate range. Unfortunately, brown or black cups were not available in the same shape for possible evaluation in the present study; it would certainly be of interest to explore their influence on the perception of chocolate flavor/aroma in future research. That said, and with particular reference to the perception of hot chocolate beverages, it is worth noting that people rate chocolate products as tasting “more chocolatey” when they are colored brown rather than another color (see Duncker 1939; Tom et al. 1987; Shankar et al. 2009).
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here’s the article in full, quite interesting: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1745-459X.2012.00397.x/full#joss397-sec-0004
So the two girls from ’2 girls, 1 cup’, would have enjoyed the whole thing more if the cup was orange.
Interesting.
So this’d be ideal? http://shop.canonical.com/product_info.php?products_id=828
Did they do control checks, like check whether the participants had a preferable color prior to the experiment. e.g. get them to rate the 4 colours in order of preference, just to check that the majority of the 57 weren’t pre determinined to like the orange. i wonder if brown would have faired better. i.e. just the most similar colour to the product. like strawberries taste better in a red bowl instead of a blue one etc.