flavor Do colors correlate with taste?

There are genetic variations in taste and smell among humans. This is peer reviewed, not just my assertion.
 
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3342754/
 
 
You ever wonder why some people can smell asparagus piss and others can't? Genetics.
 
C. Pubescens has a very different composition of capsaicinoids than nearly every other chili. Some people (like me) really, really love them (I am able to taste the complex heat flavours compared to that of say, an Aji Benito which just tastes hot and sweet to me) whereas others just taste some of the pubescens heat and think they are nothing special.
 
There have been blind taste tests where humans called chocolate as coffee, a strawberry as a cherry, "soy sauce" when tasting a strawberry, etc. Though such errors of sight would be unthinkable, they have indeed happened during blindfolding in peer-reviewed studies.
 
On the issue of color correlating with taste, this is largely down to psychophysical confirmation bias whether it becomes true for a person or not. That's a fancy way for saying that the people who believe it are ones who use stereotyping to understand the world around them (lacking true cognitive intuition and must rely upon formal education for knowledge) and the ones who it does not affect are constantly open to learning that challenges their pre-existing experiences and understanding of the world (those who do not need formal education in order to learn and prove things).
 
In short, it comes down to how one's brain is wired. People who possess cognitive intuition can understand those who do not, but the reverse is not true. Psychophysical confirmation bias does not, however, make the experience any less true for those who experience it.
 
Bhuter said:
Your excellent post isn't going to get lost in here, Jon.
I'm very interested in reading more. But I may stop reading at any moment to gather up the grey matter that's been scattered.

Thank you for this!
The (very dense) book I got that from is Keith Lehrer's Thoery of Knowledge https://smile.amazon.com/Theory-Knowledge-Keith-Lehrer/dp/0415054087
 
Hard to read, but I think I got the (very) condensed gist of the book. I read it 10-12 years ago, so the details may be a bit fuzzy.
 
The question is do colors correlate with taste. The answer is yes lol.
 
The Hot Pepper said:
Taste is not subjective. If I eat and strawberry and you eat a strawberry the taste is the same, if I say strawberries are awesome, that is subjective as you may not like them. But that does not change the taste.
 
i disagree

the object a person tastes is objective (some piece of food). there can be no argument that its chemical and structural composition is objectively knowable via study unless you're getting deep into physics.
 
but flavor is an inherently subjective interpretation derived from that object. this interpretation is rendered by a complex biological system that is your body and mind.
flavor can be defined as a sensory experience composed of taste (chiefly in the mouth), aroma (chiefly in the nasal cavity), and chemesthesis (mouth, throat, and nose).
like podz et al. said, for various reasons (including genetics), people exhibit a wide range of sensitivities to various flavor chemicals. this includes chemicals that produce tastes (like bitterness), aromas, and chemesthetic effects like pungency (like capsaicinoids). on top of that, there are emotional layers rooted in experience that can further shade an individual's interpretation of a piece of food.
 
edit: also worth pointing out that people can often (but not always) communicate flavor experiences to each other and come to a consensus on what things taste like. that is to say that they can identify objects based on their flavor and communicate that in a way that's meaningful to others. but that doesn't mean the flavor experience is identical across individuals -- it is subjective. we're able to communicate based on a lifetime of pattern matching and association of flavors with words. you and i can eat asparagus blindfolded and correctly identify it as asparagus, and we can communicate that impression to each other. but the sensory impression that got us there is unique to us.
 
or tl;dr: just because we can both agree that a thing tastes like a strawberry doesn't mean it tastes the same to us.
 
It really has nothing to do with the question at hand. You guys went off on a tangent. He's basically asking, if he likes a red habanero but does not like a chocolate habanero, can he assume that he will also like a red (other pepper) and not like the chocolate version of said other pepper.
 
My answer is yes, it doesn't matter if you taste a chocolate pepper differently, the chocolate property that YOU taste can carry over across pepper types.
 
If we remove heat from the equation and just focus on color we definitely can see the differences in taste between a green bell pepper, red, yellow, orange etc...... They each have their flavor differences. So there is a correlation between color and taste. 
 
Thats my final answer.  :)
 
I dont taste much difference if any between a red and an yellow bell. They taste almost like a green one too. Sweet twister, or those little lunchbox peppers taste the same, but sweeter. And if you can taste the difference between the colors of lunchbox pepper, that all come in the same bag, then your palette is definitely more refined than mine.
 
Walchit said:
I dont taste much difference if any between a red and an yellow bell. They taste almost like a green one too. Sweet twister, or those little lunchbox peppers taste the same, but sweeter. And if you can taste the difference between the colors of lunchbox pepper, that all come in the same bag, then your palette is definitely more refined than mine.
 
I was surprised when I bought multi-color carrots, that the purple were the most bitter (worst), the white were the sweetest (best), and the orange well, you know, basic carrot. But the purple look so appetizing and blech! Bitter dirt. And yes, peeled.
 
The Hot Pepper said:
 
I was surprised when I bought multi-color carrots, that the purple were the most bitter (worst), the white were the sweetest (best), and the orange well, you know, basic carrot. But the purple look so appetizing and blech! Bitter dirt. And yes, peeled.
Yellow/pale was most bitter for me. Orange was sweetest and purple between those. But it was crowed here in the Finland and probably different species. I'ts more difficult to correlate with chilies because they are usually crossed with something else and taste is different. But I avoid white chilies because the flavour is mosly mild and floral and sometimes bitter. I like mostly yellow/orange colored. Green is OK but not my favour. I'm trying next mustard chilies if they are any better. Red is hit or miss. They may be bitter, sweet or not much flavour or nice rich round aroma. 
 
I have been thinking about brown peppers, which are said to be red peppers that kept their green, rather than some unique brown pigment.
 
Do the people who dislike the flavor of brown peppers also dislike the taste of green peppers?
 
Could I recreate the taste of a brown habanero sauce by combining red habaneros and green (unripe) habaneros?
 
There are flavor changes to be expected with each color, but it'll still have the general flavor of that pepper. I thought I disliked orange pods until I had Bahamian Goats. I also thought I preferred brown/chocolate peppers in general until I tried chocolate ghost and nearly puked.
 
Back
Top