Does the colour of the mug influence the taste of the coffee?
- Authors: Van Doorn, George , Wuillemin, Dianne , Spence, Charles
- Date: 2014
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Flavour Vol. 3, no. 10 (2014), p. 1-7
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- Description: Background We investigated whether consumers’ perception of a café latte beverage would be influenced by the colour (transparent, white or blue) of the mug from which it was drunk. Results In experiment 1, the white mug enhanced the rated “intensity” of the coffee flavour relative to the transparent mug. However, given slight physical differences in the mugs used, a second experiment was conducted using identical glass mugs with coloured sleeves. Once again, the colour of the mug was shown to influence participants’ rating of the coffee. In particular, the coffee was rated as less sweet in the white mug as compared to the transparent and blue mugs. Conclusions Both experiments demonstrate that the colour of the mug affects people’s ratings of a hot beverage. Given that ratings associated with the transparent glass mug were not significantly different from those associated with the blue mug in either experiment, an explanation in terms of simultaneous contrast can be ruled out. However, it is possible that colour contrast between the mug and the coffee may have affected the perceived intensity/sweetness of the coffee. That is, the white mug may have influenced the perceived brownness of the coffee and this, in turn, may have influenced the perceived intensity (and sweetness) of the coffee. These results support the view that the colour of the mug should be considered by those serving coffee as it can influence the consumer’s multisensory coffee drinking experience. These results add to a large and growing body of research highlighting the influence of product-extrinsic colour on the multisensory perception of food and drink.
Does the shape of a cup influence coffee taste expectations? A cross-cultural, online study
- Authors: Van Doorn, George , Woods, Andy , Levitan, Carmel , Wan, Xiaoang , Velasco, Carlos , Bernal-Torres, Cesar , Spence, Charles
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Food Quality and Preference Vol. 56, no. (2017), p. 201-211
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- Description: We report a study designed to investigate whether shape-taste crossmodal correspondences would influence consumers’ expectations concerning coffee. To that end, we conducted a cross-cultural online survey with respondents (N = 309) from China, Colombia, and the United Kingdom (UK). The participants had to rate eight coffee mugs on eight scales by arranging the mugs within a 1000 × 250 pixel box, placing each mug so that its horizontal position matched how strongly they thought the mug matched the scale presented. Amongst other findings, the results revealed that (1) the coffee was expected to be more aromatic from narrower diameter mugs, (2) the coffee associated with shorter mugs was expected to be both more bitter and more intense, and (3) the coffee was expected to be sweeter from wider diameter mugs. An interesting cross-cultural finding was that participants from the UK expected the mugs to be hotter than participants from either China or Colombia. These results add to a large and growing body of research highlighting the associations between visual information and a product's likely (or expected) sensory qualities. These findings may be useful to those preparing coffee as they suggest that coffee should be presented in certain mugs in order to convey a message that is congruent with the consumer's expectations. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd