New research has shown that hot chocolate tastes better when it is in an orange or cream cup, compared to a white or red one.
The study, published in the ‘Journal of Sensory Studies’ was carried out by Betina Piqueras-Fiszman from the Polytechnic University of Valencia and Charles Spence from the University of Oxford. They had 57 participants taste hot chocolate served in different coloured cups. The flavour of the drinks in orange or cream cups were rated as better than the drinks in white or red cups. However, they found that the sweetness and aroma of the hot chocolate were hardly influenced by cup colour, although many participants mentioned the hot chocolate tasted slightly sweeter and was more aromatic in a cream-coloured cup.
Other studies have previously shown other effects of packaging colour on taste of drinks – for example, yellow tins improve the flavour of lemons and pink drinks are perceived as more sugary. And depending on how you like your coffee depends on the colour of cup to go for: it has been shown that brown packaging leads to a stronger perceived flavour and aroma, whereas blue and yellow containers make the coffee seem softer.
Results from all these studies give an insight into how the brain integrates information across different sensory modalities (in this case vision and taste), and how visual information from the container, not just the food, can affect taste. This could give cooks or even packaging designers ideas of how to make food more appealing, as Piqueras-Fiszman says, “it is a case of experimenting to understand how the container itself affects the perceptions that the consumers have on the product.”
Betina Piqueras-Fiszman, Charles Spence. “The influence of the color of the cup on consumers’ perception of a hot beverage”. Journal of Sensory Studies 27 (5): 324–331, 2012.
