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The problem is that the premise is flawed, in that sense that it's the wrong setting for enjoying things like for example wine. A big part of enjoying things l

by oskarth 13y ago

The problem is that the premise is flawed, in that sense that it's the wrong setting for enjoying things like for example wine. A big part of enjoying things like wine, coffee, tea, beer, whiskey, chocolate etc is in the setup, experience and anticipation of it. Good company and a nice mood makes wine taste better. By blind-testing it that dimension is lost. It doesn't produce a more "pure" or "objective" result, because the metric is wrong - the setup is artificial to begin with. That being said, there's nothing wrong with just enjoying a cup of coffee and that being it. Coffee snobs and the likes who insists on their metric being the only right ones are annoying (not implying that the author is of that variety).

gabemart 13y ago
> By blind-testing it that dimension is lost. It doesn't produce any more "pure" result, because the setup is artificial to begin with. I agree that the results of a properly controlled blind tasting are not more "valid" than the results of enjoying a coffee in a casual setting. However, they are helpful in indicating how much of that casual experience of a coffee is due to the contextual and psychological elements of the experience and how much is a result of the intrinsic qualities of the cup of coffee itself. I think this is interesting in its own terms. I don't think the premise is flawed, because the premise is not "a double-blind taste test will establish whether subjective taste is true or false", but rather "a double-blind taste test will indicate to what degree subjective taste is determined strictly by the substance being tasted".
stdbrouw 13y ago
Surely when you're trying to figure out whether one cup of coffee is better than another, you're not interested in an absolute number as much as a comparative ranking? Why would taking away the "setup, experience and anticipation" also take away our capacity for taste and evaluation?

by oskarth 13y ago

gabemart 13y ago

> By blind-testing it that dimension is lost. It doesn't produce any more "pure" result, because the setup is artificial to begin with. I agree that the results of a properly controlled blind tasting are not more "valid" than the results of enjoying a coffee in a casual setting. However, they are helpful in indicating how much of that casual experience of a coffee is due to the contextual and psychological elements of the experience and how much is a result of the intrinsic qualities of the cup of coffee itself. I think this is interesting in its own terms. I don't think the premise is flawed, because the premise is not "a double-blind taste test will establish whether subjective taste is true or false", but rather "a double-blind taste test will indicate to what degree subjective taste is determined strictly by the substance being tasted".

stdbrouw 13y ago

Surely when you're trying to figure out whether one cup of coffee is better than another, you're not interested in an absolute number as much as a comparative ranking? Why would taking away the "setup, experience and anticipation" also take away our capacity for taste and evaluation?