So one night we decided to put his claims to test: he was summarily sent to basement with a few friends; while the remainder of us prepared the samples in the kitchen.
We (preparers) then left the room while he sampled and wrote down his choices - as double-blind as we can make it.
He was wrong even more than random guessing would've allowed; and the video of his confident, but entirely erroneous reports are still an amusing viewing amongst our group :)
Mind you, he still claims superiority of one product and his ability to tell. But time again, these claims don't bear testing...
Well, the point of the article is that there are many people who claim that they can do such things, but when they're put to the test...can't.
Have you actually tested yourself, or do you just assume you can do it?
It reminds me a lot of this:
http://tom-morrow-land.com/tests/ampchall/
In short: Richard Clarke, an audio guru, put his own money up to reward people who could tell the difference in sound quality, consistently, between two level-matched amplifiers of varying price. No one has passed. Audiophiles have been complaining about it for years.
Sure they made it to promote their product and I guess there is no money involved. But in the end they show your scores and the % of all tests. If you take out the "don't know" it is near 50/50.
In blind tests, people generally preferred the sweeter Pepsi. In unblinded tests, people preferred the incredibly brand-dominant Coke.
This whole thing is a case study on brand perception, not sensory perception.
[edit] typo
The second thing is that "proper experiment" I mentioned. It's one thing to tell someone they're getting Coke and Pepsi. It's another to tell them they get two new products (but actually Coke and Pepsi). Yet another to tell them they're getting Coke and Pepsi and give them generic-cola-1 and -2. All of those may tell you something interesting.
Check the paper "Blind Taste Test of Soft-drinks – A Comparison Study on Coke and Pepsi" - people actually can't identify the brand properly.
starts reading
Holy broken English Batman!
checks author names
Ah. Ok.
Interesting that respondents seem to be using "sweetness" as a stand-in for "how much I like it". I'd class Coke as a fair bit drier than Pepsi—still quite sweet, but noticeably less so than Pepsi. The "open" version of responses, though, rate Coke as much sweeter.
I don't get measuring the "caffeine" perception, but maybe I'm just unusual in not knowing what caffeine _per se_ tastes like? Possibly something's being lost in translation (so to speak) here.
I wonder what percentage identified _both_ drinks correctly. Perhaps it turns out that ~half+ of all people are really bad at differentiating flavors in colas.
Interesting that "can't identify" went up with Coca Cola. I definitely find both its nose and flavor to be milder than Pepsi, so I guess that makes sense.
(for the record, I go for Coke over Pepsi, which you'd have to pay me to drink, though even Coke wears out its welcome with me after a half-dozen ounces or so)
If you serve it cold enough most people can't tell the difference between coke and 7up.
I used to drink a ton of Coke and I guarantee I could tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi. These days I rarely drink soda, and while I think I could tell the difference, I could probably be fooled.
Dr. Pepper I think has a more distinctive taste but my point is that your experience may not line up with what most people expect and you may in fact have an above average sense of smell and/or taste.
Second, assuming you can indeed tell the difference, you're assuming smell and taste are one single axis. You might be good at differentiating only certain kinds of molecules.
> Second, assuming you can indeed tell the difference, you're assuming smell and taste are one single axis. You might be good at differentiating only certain kinds of molecules.
So possibly I'm a soda-only super-smeller/taster. Ha, there's a handy skill. :-(
[EDIT] if it helps, it seems to me that having a "Pepsi Challenge" is like having an "Orange Challenge" where the other contender is a lime. It's not exactly gonna be hard to tell which one you're dealing with, even if the sample's the same size and you're blindfolded. Throw in a half-dozen other citrus fruits and yeah, I could see getting a couple of them wrong but just those two? No. Judging from the reaction here, though, I'm starting to wonder if I need to re-evaluate my sense of smell/taste. Maybe it's not only farther from normal than I thought, but in the opposite direction.
One thing you might not be realizing is that many people have absolutely shot their palates with modern flavorings, sugar bombing, etc. (though these days, smoking at least is less of a thing). I too don't have trouble telling the difference between Coke and Pepsi (and have done it blind), but if you took away visual cues, I think you'd be surprised how many people would bilge even the orange/lime test.
It turns out that they are not the same, and there's a reason lots of people order whiskey and coke and nobody orders whiskey and pepsi.
It was not better.
To me at least, Coke has more citrus notes and is a bit more sour. RC, at least in the US is slightly more bitter and also seems to have a slightly sweet aftertaste, but not that different from Coke. Pepsi is more sweeter as well, and doesn't have the citrus hit.
The more interesting difference is Sugar cane Coke, like they have in Australia, and Corn Syrup. They are both equally sweet, IMO, but the corn syrup has a different aftertaste and texture. Still mostly identical.
> The results usually have Pepsi wiping the floor with Coke
That study says nothing about inability to differentiate tastes, only a disparity between taste preference and brand preference.