Procedure:
- Recruit volunteers for the taste test. Ask them if they have any food allergies so you don't include those foods in your samples. Let them know the day and time of our experiment and how long it should take.
- Make a list and gather up the foods you want to use in your experiment.
- Prepare your samples, taking care to make sure the texture of the original food is not too recognizable.
- You should try tasting each sample yourself so that you'll know if any is too unappealing or strong to use in a blind test with your volunteers.
- You can probably prepare many of your samples the day before and keep them in the refrigerator overnight, if necessary.
- Be sure all samples are at room temperature when you have your volunteers taste them since temperature can affect flavors.
- The day of the taste test, explain to the volunteers that they will be trying a group of food samples with the nose plugs on and then the same set of samples with the nose plugs off. They also will wear a scarf over their eyes during the test so that they won't be influenced by what the samples look like. Reassure them that they may taste some strong flavors, but you will be giving them food that they normally eat.
- Do the taste test with one volunteer in the room at a time so that the other volunteers do not hear any responses before it is their turn to try the food samples.
- For each sample, ask the volunteer to describe the type of flavor that they detect. Record their response(s) in your notebook. If they can't really identify any specific flavor, indicate that as can't identify.
- Next, ask them to try to identify the food. Also record their response and whether they were correct, close, or incorrect.
- Let the volunteer have a sip of water between each sample so that they cleanse their taste buds before trying the next food.
- After each volunteer finishes each set of samples with the nose plugs on and without, you can have them remove the scarf and let them see what they have been tasting.
Materials :
- 3-4 volunteers
- testing area
- small bowls or cups for each sample
- knives to chop of the food
- pretzels, strawberries, potato chips, salty crackers
- cutting board
- plastic spoons
- paper cups
- pitcher of water to clear the mouth
- a scarf to cover the eyes
- nose plugs
- note pads
- pens/pencils