Not All Flavor Expertise Is Equal: The Language of Wine and Coffee Experts

Abstract

People in Western cultures are poor at naming smells and flavors. However, for wine and coffee experts, describing smells and flavors is part of their daily routine. So are experts better than lay people at conveying smells and flavors in language? If smells and flavors are more easily linguistically expressed by experts, or more “codable”, then experts should be better than novices at describing smells and flavors. If experts are indeed better, we can also ask how general this advantage is: do experts show higher codability only for smells and flavors they are expert in (i.e., wine experts for wine and coffee experts for coffee) or is their linguistic dexterity more general? To address these questions, wine experts, coffee experts, and novices were asked to describe the smell and flavor of wines, coffees, everyday odors, and basic tastes. The resulting descriptions were compared on a number of measures. We found expertise endows a modest advantage in smell and flavor naming. Wine experts showed more consistency in how they described wine smells and flavors than coffee experts, and novices; but coffee experts were not more consistent for coffee descriptions. Neither expert group was any more accurate at identifying everyday smells or tastes. Interestingly, both wine and coffee experts tended to use more source-based terms (e.g., vanilla) in descriptions of their own area of expertise whereas novices tended to use more evaluative terms (e.g., nice). However, the overall linguistic strategies for both groups were en par. To conclude, experts only have a limited, domain-specific advantage when communicating about smells and flavors. The ability to communicate about smells and flavors is a matter not only of perceptual training, but specific linguistic training too.

Iranian Herbalists, But Not Cooks, Are Better at Naming Odors Than Laypeople

“…Multiple accounts have been proposed to explain odor ineffability (e.g., Engen, ; Köster et al, ; Lorig, ; Olofsson & Gottfried, ; Young). However, a growing number of studies across a variety of communities demonstrates that the ability to talk about odors is strongly influenced by the rich, structured knowledge that accompanies both professional expertise (e.g., Croijmans & Majid, ; Knaapila et al, , ; Parr et al, ; Royet, Delon‐Martin, & Plailly, ; Sezille et al, ; Urdapilleta et al, ; Zucco et al, ) and entrenched cultural and linguistic practices (e.g., Floyd et al, ; Majid & Burenhult, ; Majid et al, ; O'Meara et al, ; Wnuk & Majid, ; see Majid, for a review).…”

“…Morquecho‐Campos, Larsson, Boesveldt, & Olofsson, ). Finally, future work on odor naming should examine the domain‐specificity of experts' superior naming abilities, considering that experts' improved odor descriptions appear to be limited to their own domain of expertise (e.g, Croijmans & Majid, ).…”

“…Some studies suggest that odor naming is no better among experts than laypeople (e.g., Lawless, ; Parr, Heatherbell, & White, ), a claim which is bolstered by the substantial variation between experts when producing free odor descriptions (e.g., Sauvageot, Urdapilleta, & Peyron, ). Other studies have shown that experts can have higher agreement among themselves in how they name odors (e.g., Croijmans & Majid, ; Urdapilleta, Parr, Dacremont, & Green, ; Zucco, Carassai, Baroni, & Stevenson, ). In one study, Sezille, Fournel, Rouby, Rinck, and Bensafi () compared free descriptions of pleasant and unpleasant chemical compounds by flavorists and perfumers (both with formal odor training), trainee cooks (with extensive odor exposure), and laypeople (with no training or extensive exposure).…”

“…In addition to this, we estimated participants' experience with odors by asking them to rate each one for its familiarity and frequency. Finally, in order to assess people's meta‐awareness of odors, we used an adapted version of the Short Odor Awareness Scale from Smeets, Schifferstein, Boelema, and Lensvelt‐Mulders (), following Croijmans and Majid (). This questionnaire asks people about their awareness of both positive and negative odors.…”

Sensory expert assessor's learning practices at workplace: Competencies and contexts in sensory evaluation

“…According to a study by Croijmans, Majid, and Simon () on coffee and wine, perceptual experience alone does not explain assessor performance because they have only a limited domain‐specific advantage over novices when describing odors and flavors. Ballester, Patris, Symoneaux, and Valentin () suggest that wine expertise is cognitive expertise rather than perceptual expertise, when evaluated by the sense of smell.…”