7 Psychology Tips for Impactful Tastings

In 2013 something extraordinary happened.

Cadbury changed the shape of the chunks in their highly worshipped Dairy Milk chocolate bar from square to rounded. Although not revolutionary, it’s what happened next that was remarkable, and what we can learn from it that’s beneficial for hosting tastings.

Every sensory input has the capacity to influence the perception of flavour. From sounds and textures, to colours and shapes. When designing whisky tastings, wine tastings, gin tastings, or any other for that matter, it’s paramount to ‘get it right’. When creating the perfect tasting experience for your brand, you have an opportunity to either enhance the experience in a positive way, or enhance it in an unintended negative way.

Increasingly we see consumers, including you and I, pursuing deeper, more meaningful experiences that shift away from marketing hype and move towards authentic adventures for the senses. Tastings create a direct connection between a brand and its audience, and once we begin to unravel insights from psychology and neuroscience, it becomes apparent that everything matters. What does it have to do with chocolate bars?

Cadbury is an excellent example of how to get it wrong. Let’s take a look and see what we can learn from it, before exploring some psychology and neuroscience hacks that will take customer experiences to the next level.

This is cultural vandalism

An uprising of waggly fingers and shaking fists ensued from die-hard Dairy Milk fans. This is what happened when Cadbury changed the shape of their flagship chocolate bar. It was purely a cost-saving exercise in the form of shaving a few grams off the corners of their legendary block of milky cocoa. However, what was a seemingly insignificant change from square corners to round ones nearly ended civilisation as we know it.

“This is cultural vandalism.”

“If I wanted crap chocolate I'd buy Hershey's!”

“The chocolate is crumblier, less smooth, less creamy and the new shape is just plain wrong.”

“They just don't understand the English culture!”

The revolt grew with such fury that chocolate champions from up and down the country started an online petition and unleashed their full wrath through the ferocious typing of keyboards. Why were people so angry over a change of shape, you may ask? In fact, no-one appeared too concerned about the shape. What mattered to them most is what matters most to each and every one of us - flavour. And now Dairy Milk tasted sweeter. Too sweet in fact.

But Cadbury hadn’t performed any degree of recipe wrangling whatsoever. On the contrary. The chocolate itself was exactly the same. It’s a very public example of how shape impacts our experience of flavour. In the simple case of Cadbury Diary Milk – rounded edges created the perception that the chocolate was sweeter. The principles behind this revolt are explained by the neurodesign concepts of crossmodal correspondences, and can be applied to tastings.

Crossmodel correspodences and flavour

Crossmodal correspondences in flavour perception refer to how our brain links information from different senses. All of our senses are involved - taste, smell, sight, sound, and touch. The objective for the brain is to create a unified experience of flavour. These correspondences are the brain’s ability to naturally associate certain sensory inputs across different senses or modalities, enhancing the perception of flavour.

As any easy example, the most direct crossmodal interaction is flavour, which occurs between taste, smell, and mouthfeel. When we eat, flavour is a combination of taste receptor stimulation, retronasal smell (odours detected in the nose from inside the mouth), and mouthfeel (largely touch-related stimulation). The brain integrates these inputs to form a single perception of flavour and each sensory input will influence others. For example, vanilla odours can make something taste sweeter, despite vanilla being tasteless and without changing its sugar content.

As mentioned, visual cues heavily influence how we perceive flavour in much the same way that vanilla odours makes things taste sweeter. The colour of food or drink can make us expect certain tastes. A bright red drink might seem sweeter or fruitier than a clear one, even if the flavours are the same. Without these effects the food colouring industry would come to a grinding halt. In the case of Cadbury, the shape of food can affect how we perceive its taste (e.g., round shapes being linked with sweeter flavours). But the principles apply to all other elements and touch points.

How to host the best tasting event

Looking at a single consumer touchpoint, a tasting event opens a portal that connects potential customers with your brand. Every aspect of the event will influence perceptions, with flavour being just one of those perceptions. If you want an idea of how much information the brain absorbs without us consciously being aware of it, consider this:

The non-conscious mind can process 11 million bits of information every second. This is in stark contrast to our conscious minds that can handle a mere 40 to 50 bits of information per second.

That’s a significant difference, and it highlights how elements that we may not be consciously aware of influence our experience - such as shape for example. The question is, how can you apply this knowledge to create customer tastings that are meaningful, memorable, and amazing? Here are some tips:

• Lighting and Colour: Use ambient lighting to influence the perception of sweetness or bitterness. For instance, soft, warm lighting can make wines or whiskies taste sweeter, while cooler, dim lighting may enhance the perception of bitterness or acidity. For a sweet dessert wine or rich sherry cask whisky, use warm tones like gold or amber to accentuate those flavours.

• Sound and Music Pairing: Play music that aligns with the flavour profiles of the wine, whisky, or gin. High-pitched, melodic music can enhance the perception of sweetness or lighter flavours, while deep, bass-heavy tones can accentuate bitterness or earthy notes. For example, pairing a light, floral gin with classical harp music might enhance the perception of its delicacy, while pairing a peaty whisky with deep, resonant music could make the smokiness feel more intense.

• Tactile Elements: Introduce textures in the environment that correspond to the mouthfeel of the wine or whisky. A heavy, velvety red wine or a rich, oily whisky might be served with soft velvet napkins, while a crisp, fresh white wine could be paired with a more tactile, crisp table setting. On one occasion I even coated tasting glasses with textures such as sand, velour, and fur.

• Glassware: The shape of the glass can be selected to reflect the flavour profile of the drink. Rounder glasses are often associated with sweetness and softness, while angular glasses may enhance perceptions of sharpness or acidity. For a gin with a sweet, rich profile, a round tumbler could subtly suggest and enhance those soft characteristics. For a more angular, sharp-tasting wine, consider glassware with geometric, angular designs. The weight of the glassware can also be paired with different flavours. For example, heavy glasses for rich flavours, and light glasses for delicate flavours.

• Tasting Mats and Pouring Vessels: You could design tasting mats or coasters using shape symbolism - the meanings that we attach to shapes and designs. Wines, whiskies, or gins with rounded, mellow profiles might be represented on circular mats, while sharper, more acidic or tannic drinks could be placed on square or angular mats. This visual cue reinforces the tasting experience before the guest even sips the drink.

• Contrast in Presentation: Use contrast in how the wine or whisky is presented to make certain elements stand out. A dark whisky could be served on a light background to make its colour pop, drawing attention to the richness of its appearance and linking it to depth in flavour. Alternatively, serve a crisp white wine on a dark surface to make it appear even more refreshing.

• Flavour Pacing with Visual Cues: Create a progression in the tasting by controlling how participants visually engage with each step. If tasting multiple whiskies or wines, use visual cues such as changes in lighting or changes in the colour of the serving platters to indicate shifts in flavour profiles, guiding them through light-to-bold or sweet-to-bitter transitions.

Knowledge is power

Whether you control the tasting environment or leave it to chance, your guests’ experience will be influenced by all aspects of the event. I expect you will be able to recall an event you attended personally, where a small instance mired the entire experience. Perhaps the person that greeted you was having a bad day. Perhaps background noise made it difficult to have a conversation. Or perhaps the tasting glasses could have been cleaner. The important point is that as an event organiser or host, you have control over these things.

Understanding the psychology behind creating customer experiences gives you the power and skills to make events even more exceptional and memorable. Many of the components will be intuitive and common sense, but there are many ‘tricks’ that you can harness to accentuate the positives. Because creating positive interactions is what flavour is all about. These are just some of the skills we teach on our flavour training courses for brand ambassadors, tasting hosts, and customer experience teams. Get in touch to find out more. Now, where did I put that bar of Dairy Milk?