Does cheese taste different when we taste it with music?

New study results on the taste perception of cheese

08-Feb-2023 - France

Does cheese taste different when we taste it with music? Finding out was the aim of a new study on taste and sensory perception conducted in November 2022 by Kantar* on behalf of the French dairy industry association CNIEL.

Andra C Taylor Jr / Unsplash

After a Swiss study demonstrated the effect of music on the ripening process of cheese, the question remained whether our hearing has an impact on our taste perception of cheese. One hundred men and women between the ages of 18 and 65 tasted seven pieces of cheese to seven different types of music (hip-hop & rap, classical, rock, pop, electro dance, world music, jazz blues). What they didn't know was that the pieces of cheese served at the tasting were all identical and came from the same wheel of cheese. Surprise!

Can we use music to enhance the enjoyment of cheese?

Cheese - in this case a Comté aged for over six months - gives the greatest pleasure when listening to hip-hop during tasting. Electro and rock music also perform well. In contrast, the taste experience with jazz is less convincing:

A quarter of consumers (24%) find cheese tastes best together with hip-hop. The music genres electro and rock provide the right rhythm for optimum cheese enjoyment for 18 % and 16 % of the test persons, respectively. They also achieve the best scores when the ratings "exceptionally tasty" and "very tasty" are considered: One in two consumers think this music harmonizes well with cheese. One third of the test persons consider the cheese enjoyment in combination with jazz to be mediocre or not successful.

* Study conducted by Kantar on November 3, 2022 among 100 men and women aged 18 to 65 who had consumed cheese in the previous 3 months and also liked Comté - survey conducted in tasting rooms in 2 French cities (Paris and Tours).

Note: This article has been translated using a computer system without human intervention. LUMITOS offers these automatic translations to present a wider range of current news. Since this article has been translated with automatic translation, it is possible that it contains errors in vocabulary, syntax or grammar. The original article in German can be found here.

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