Elsevier

Food Quality and Preference

Volume 75, July 2019, Pages 157-169
Food Quality and Preference

Cup colour influences consumers’ expectations and experience on tasting specialty coffee

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2019.03.001Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Three studies examine the effect of cup colour on specialty coffee taste attributes.

  • Pre- and post-tasting ratings of sweetness and acidity are affected by cup colour.

  • Cup colour influences hedonic judgements in congruent and incongruent pairings.

  • It is important to consider designing receptacles to optimize the drinking experience.

Abstract

The present study was designed to investigate the effect of the colour of the cup on sensory and hedonic judgments of specialty coffee by consumers. Altogether, 457 participants took part in one of three experiments. Crossmodal correspondences between the colour of the cup (i.e., an extrinsic cue) and the taste profile of the coffee served (i.e., the contents) were manipulated. Congruent and incongruent colour × taste pairings were created by using four cup colours (white, pink, yellow, and green) and two coffee profiles (sweet Brazilian and acidic Kenyan) to assess whether these manipulations would affect pre-and/or post-tasting ratings. Participants first rated their expectations of sweetness and acidity, and subsequently, their experience of those attributes on tasting the coffees, as well as rating their liking. The results revealed that the colour of the cup exerted a significant influence on both pre- and post-tasting ratings for all attributes measured. Liking ratings significantly decreased in incongruent pairing conditions – which also increased the unexpected acidity of the Kenyan coffee when tasted from the pink cup. Taken together, these results demonstrate for the first time that the colour of the cup significantly impacts sensory and hedonic judgements of specialty coffee. Our results also show that the contrast between expected and actual experience can result in a negative hedonic response and the enhancement of the unexpected sensory attribute. Implications for the development of coffee cups that can enhance the drinking experience are highlighted.

Introduction

According to the International Standards Organization, flavour can be defined as a “complex combination of the olfactory, gustatory and trigeminal sensations perceived during tasting” which “may be influenced by tactile, thermal, painful and/or kinaesthetic effects” (ISO 5492, 2008). However, in addition to the so-called consummatory or interoceptive cues which involve the sensory systems mentioned by the ISO definition (i.e., those stimulated once a food or drink product has entered the mouth), anticipatory or exteroceptive cues have also been shown to exert a profound influence over multisensory flavour experiences too (Small et al., 2008, Spence, 2015, Stevenson, 2014). Specifically, anticipatory cues are those that help in setting expectations before the food or drink enters the mouth, and include orthonasal smell, vision, audition, and somatosensation. According to the literature, visual information, especially colour cues – provide an especially important source of cues concerning taste/flavour expectations (see Piqueras-Fiszman and Spence, 2015, Spence and Piqueras-Fiszman, 2016, for reviews).

Studies conducted over the last three decades in a number of different countries have highlighted a remarkable degree of consistency when people are asked to match colours and basic tastes (see Spence et al., 2015, for a review). The pairings between basic tastes and colours have been characterized as an example of a crossmodal correspondence in which apparently unrelated sensory features, or dimensions, are perceived or described as matching (i.e., as a feeling that the stimuli belonging to different dimensions/sensory modalities go together; see Spence, 2011, for a review). Amongst the strong colour-taste correspondences, sour has been associated with yellow and green whereas sweet has been associated with pink and/or red instead. Interestingly, in addition to colour-taste pairings, the saturation of the colour also appears to be related to tastant concentration (Saluja & Stevenson, 2018).

These crossmodal correspondences likely arise because of learnt associations between colour and taste. Certain colour-taste associations are probably fairly universal such as, for instance, those related to fruit ripeness in humans’ natural environment (Maga, 1974, Foroni et al., 2016). In this case, prior exposure to differences between red and green nuances would bias natural colour-taste correlation, being the red end of the spectrum associated with sweetness and the green end of the spectrum associated with sourness. In addition to these natural associations, other colour-taste correspondences may be more dependent on different colours co-occurring with different types of food in different parts of the world. Thus, these particular colour-taste associations are likely to be – at least to a certain extent – culture specific (Shankar et al., 2010, Wan et al., 2014).

Moreover, the saliency of colour cues in taste/flavour priming goes beyond product intrinsic sensory attributes (i.e., those that physically belong to the product itself) and includes extrinsic sources of information – which are not physically a part of the product but are somehow related to it. Product extrinsic colour cues refer to all product-related colour experienced by the consumer – i.e., where the product happens to be sold, served, or consumed, such as tableware, labelling, and packaging (Ares and Deliza, 2010, Harrar and Spence, 2013, Piqueras-Fiszman and Spence, 2012, Spence, 2017). In some situations, even the colour of the environment itself (i.e., contextual cues) has been shown to affect flavour ratings (Oberfeld et al., 2009, Spence et al., 2014, Velasco et al., 2013; though see Jiang, Niimi, Ristic, & Bastian, 2017, for an exception).

A growing body of empirical research now demonstrates that the physical properties of the serving vessel are strongly tied to the experience of flavour of the beverages being consumed from them (see Spence, 2018, Spence and Wan, 2015, for reviews). The colour of the receptacle has been shown to affect judgments of warmth for coffee (Guéguen & Jacob, 2012), the perceived level of carbonation of water samples (Risso, Maggioni, Olivero, & Gallace, 2015), as well as the perceived intensity of certain flavours and well as basic tastes attributes in several beverages. For instance, early research reported that consumers rated the lemon/lime flavour in 7-Up as more intense when the beverage was tasted from a can that was 15% more yellow in colour than normal (Cheskin, 1957). Presumably the increase in the amount of yellow may have exogenously drawn the consumers’ attention to the lemony flavour already present in the drink. Cheskin dubbed this phenomenon “sensation transference”, when people automatically translate their perception of, or feelings about, the sensory properties of the receptacle into the experience of the contents (see Skaczkowski, Durkin, Kashima, & Wakefield, 2016, for a recent review).

Meanwhile, Dichter (1964) carried out a pioneering study into the influence of the colour of the packaging on taste/flavour judgments. Participants were given four cups of coffee to compare and evaluate (see Favre & November, 1979, p. 64, for a summary of the results). Each cup of coffee was served from a pot having a different colour (brown, red, blue, or yellow). 73% of those tested reported that the coffee served from the brown container was ‘too strong’; Meanwhile, 84% of the female participants suggested the coffee served from the red pot was rich and full-bodied; The aroma of the coffee from the blue jar was rated as having a milder aroma; And the coffee served from the yellow container seemed to have come from a weaker blend. In fact, the coffee in all of the pots was the same. Once again, therefore, these results add to the growing literature illustrating the widespread impact of colour on taste/flavour perception.

More recently, the participants in another study were asked to evaluate the receptacle itself (affective and sensory pre-tasting ratings) or the experience of consuming either hot Earl Grey tea or a chilled lemon soft drink from these cups (post-tasting ratings; Schifferstein, 2009). All cups made from different materials and were all pinkish except for one which was transparent glass. One of the assessed attributes was sweetness, and all pink cups, when empty, were rated as significantly sweeter than the transparent cup. Interestingly, however, no differences in sweetness ratings were observed for the actual drinking experiences. It is possible that the participants may have transferred the sensation of the pinkness of the cups (i.e., their beliefs, and expectations, based on previous experience that pink foodstuffs tend to be sweet – Spence et al., 2015) to their impressions of the ‘sweet content’ of the cups themselves. However, the anticipation of sweetness primed by the pink colour was not an indicator of the actual perception of sweet aroma and taste of either of the beverages. One reason for this lack of correlation between expectation and experience could be that the chosen beverages (i.e., Earl Grey tea and lemon soft drink) are not necessarily associated with sweetness in the first place. This study therefore raises a flag concerning the importance of matching the colour of the container (or rather, the taste expectation elicited by that colour) with taste attributes that are actually present in, or have been associated with, the beverage being served in order to search for crossmodal effects.

Other recent experiments have assessed the effect of cup colour on flavour attributes and hedonic judgments in hot beverages that include hot chocolate (Piqueras-Fiszman & Spence, 2012) and café latte (Van Doorn, Wuillemin, & Spence, 2014). For instance, in the former study, a hot chocolate drink was served to participants in orange, white, red, or cream-coloured plastic cups. The hot chocolate was rated as having a more intense flavour when served in the orange cup than when served in either white or red cups (with no significant difference from the cream-coloured cup). It was also liked more when tasted from the orange cup than from the white cup (with no significant difference from the other two coloured cups). The choice of these four colours, according to the authors, was based on the observation that: “those are among the most common colours found among cups available for dispensed (or vended) hot beverages” (Piqueras-Fiszman & Spence, 2012, p. 326). Meanwhile, the results of the latter study revealed that the café latte was rated as more intense in flavour – but also as less sweet – when served in a white mug (or in a transparent mug with a white sleeve) as compared to a blue mug (or in a transparent mug with a blue sleeve) or to a transparent mug. Once again, the colour selection was motivated by the mug types that “are amongst the most commonly used vessels to serve coffee in Australian cafés and restaurants” instead of prior knowledge concerning colour-taste crossmodal effects (Van Doorn et al., 2014, p. 1).

Coffee is one of the most commonly consumed beverages worldwide. Traditionally, coffee has been traded as a commodity and consumed as industrial blends (Ponte, 2002). However, coffee trading and consumption has changed profoundly over the last 30 years with new trading schemes appearing as customers become more interested in consuming better quality coffee. Thus, new patterns of coffee drinking have emerged with the growing importance of specialty coffees (Carvalho et al., 2016, Ponte, 2002). Specialty coffee is a term used to refer to those coffees distinguished on the basis of quality and uniqueness of origin, according to the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) and the international Q Coffee System protocols (Lingle & Menon, 2017). In spite of its formal definition, the concept of specialty coffee has exceeded the narrow meaning based solely on quality. It also refers to the out-of-home consumption market niche where the content of the consumption experience includes, but is not limited to, high quality coffees. The specialty coffee consumer is likely interested in different coffee flavour profiles, brewing methods, packaging, and ambience (de Luca and Pegan, 2014, Ponte, 2002). Therefore, it is important to understand the relevant factors that might enhance the multisensory experience in the coffee shop. One factor that must be considered when trying to create a truly engaging multisensory atmosphere for specialty coffee consumption is the vessel in which the coffee is served (Bury, 2014, Carvalho and Spence, 2018, de Luca and Pegan, 2014).

Many studies have already been published on colour-taste/flavour interactions between the drinking container and its contents. Nevertheless, none have focused on assessing whether the appropriateness of pairing up the colour of the vessel with its corresponding basic taste (e.g., pink or red for sweetness, yellow or green for acidity, black for bitterness – See Spence et al., 2015) affects pre- and/or post-tasting ratings, as well as hedonic judgments during the drinking experience. Moreover, very little research has been published to date specifically looking at crossmodal influences of the cup on aroma and taste attributes in the case of filter coffee (Carvalho and Spence, 2018, Van Doorn et al., 2017; see also Guéguen & Jacob, 2012, for crossmodal correspondence between cup colour and the warmth of coffee), whereas the association between the colour of the receptacle and flavour perception in specialty coffee remains essentially unstudied.

The study reported here is therefore distinct from previous research in its theoretical approach. We seek not only to examine a possible interaction between the colour of the vessel and the perception of taste/flavour attributes as has been done in the past. In addition, we aim at critically manipulating (i) the colour cue that has been demonstrated to set expectations about taste identity and (ii) the taste profile of the coffee served (i.e., the content). For this, four colours of ceramic cups were selected based on previously documented colour-taste crossmodal correspondences (pink for sweetness; green and yellow for acidity; white as a reference, being the traditional colour for coffee cups in Brazil), and they were paired up with two very distinct coffee flavour profiles. One coffee was high in sweetness (typical of Brazilian specialty coffees) whereas the other was high in acidity (common in Kenyan specialty coffees)1. Thus, the participants were exposed to both congruent and incongruent colour-taste pairings in order to investigate whether the colour of the cup would influence participants’ taste expectations, actual taste perception as well as their hedonic judgements of the coffees served in both conditions (i.e., congruent and incongruent). By following this experimental design based on colour × taste correspondences, hypotheses concerning both sensory and hedonic aspects could be addressed. Drawing upon the aforementioned sensation transference account, and also on observations that sensory expectations alter the actual perception of food products (Piqueras-Fiszman & Spence, 2015), the hypothesis was put forward that cup colour will increase both pre- and post-tasting ratings of its corresponding basic taste in the congruent conditions. For the incongruent conditions, based on both processing fluency and assimilation-contrast theories that accounts for the effect of cognitive effort in processing mismatching multisensory cues (Reber et al., 1998, Reber and Schwarz, 2001) and of disconfirmation of expectations by the actual consumption experience (Cardello & Sawyer, 1992), one of two outcomes might be expected. If the disparity between the expectations and actual perception is within an acceptable range (though note that it is currently unclear how wide the acceptable range here is), the consumer is capable of assimilating the difference, meaning that the stimuli are being processed more fluently or easily. By contrast, in those situations in which the discrepancy (or prediction error – Friston, 2010, Hirsh et al., 2012) is outside of this acceptance range, decreased processing fluency may lead to decreased liking ratings. Indeed, the consumer may even overreact by exaggerating the difference between expectation and reality – observed in an evaluation shift in the direction opposite to the original expectation (Piqueras-Fiszman and Spence, 2015, Schifferstein, 2001). In other words, the promise of a sensory experience followed by the delivery of a mismatching one may lead to high ratings of the unexpected taste/flavour as well as greater customer disappointment (Yeomans, Chambers, Blumenthal, & Blake, 2008)2.

Given the rationale outlined above, we focus here on testing the hypothesis that the colour of the cup alters both the expected and actual sensory experience as well as hedonic judgments in congruent and incongruent set-ups.

Section snippets

Participants

A total of 457 participants gave their informed consent to take part in one of the three experiments reported in the present study. The study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the School of Psychology, University of São Paulo, Brazil. After data quality control, the data from 82 participants were included in the final analysis of Experiment 1 (31 female; age: 36.4 ± 9.2, 22–61 years-old), 92 in the final analysis of Experiment 2 (40 female; age: 36.8 ± 11.4, 20–60 years-old), and

Taste expectation (pre-tasting ratings)

The MANOVA tests revealed a significant main effect of cup colour on participants’ ratings of the expected taste attributes of the coffee in all three experiments. That is, there was a significant difference in expected sweetness and acidity ratings based on cup colour in Experiments 1 [F(2,79) = 8.04, p < 0.01, Wilks’ lambda

Discussion

Given previous reports documenting the existence of crossmodal correspondences between colours and tastes (see Spence et al., 2015), the three experiments carried out in the present study were designed to investigate whether the colour of the outer surface of coffee cups (white, pink, yellow, and green) would influence expectations and experience of taste attributes (sweetness and acidity). Different groups of amateur consumers of specialty coffee evaluated either espresso (Experiments 1 and 2)

Conclusions

Colour plays a central part in consumers’ response towards food/drink, even if the colour is part of the container from which the food/drink is consumed. The results of the present study suggest this is also true for specialty coffee since the colour of the cup affected expected and perceived tastes as well as hedonic judgements in amateur consumers. The colour-induced effects observed in pre- and post-tasting sweetness and acidity ratings corroborate several previous findings on the crossmodal

Acknowledgements

The first author is very grateful to all supporters of “The Coffee Sensorium” project. This project owes a great deal to many people from the specialty coffee community. The authors would, in particular, like to thank Tim Wendelboe and Felipe Croce (from Fazenda Ambiental Fortaleza) for donating the coffees used in Experiment 3, Diego Gonzales (Sofa Cafe) for providing the testing location, and Tony Chen for painting the coffee cups. We would also like to thank Takko Cafe and Ancora Coffee

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