Português
Sabor intercultural: Explorando disparidades de linguagem sensorial na avaliação de café para o mercado global
Introduction
The Cross-cultural taste project takes an interdisciplinary approach to addressing the difficulties faced by coffee producers in selling specialty coffee to the European market by assessing divergences in the sensory language and references used by professional Brazilian and British coffee tasters under experimental conditions and through anthropological methods.
Cross-cultural taste is funded (2024-2025) through a Scottish Funding Council International Scientific Partnership ODA grant in collaboration with the State University of Campinas (Brazil).
About the project
Brazil is the world’s largest coffee producer and exporter, and a growing sub-set of this coffee is ‘specialty coffee’—high-quality coffee that has unique flavours and tastes, now accounting for nearly 15% of Brazilian coffee exports. While specialty coffee commands much higher prices on the international market than conventional coffees, it presents more difficulties in logistics and getting to market in the first place as it requires producers and brokers to communicate elements of value: what is special and unique about this coffee and, consequently, worth a higher price?
Grounded in a sensory anthropology of food but paired with experimental sensory science work, our team is looking at how professional coffee tasters in Brazil and the UK develop and deploy sensory references and how embodied tasting practices convey meaning and value within the global coffee industry.