January 9

Again today, we tasted several types of milk chocolate. The first was the Green and Black (an organic chocolate) which was very sweet and milky. But it also had an ever so slight hint of a fruity taste. The next type is the Michel Cluizel which was physically softer to the touch but also had a much smoother taste. The only words I can find to describe the taste are “less intense” and a more “calm” taste. Next was the El Ray which was a harder chocolate that had a very crisp snap when bitten into. It was a little bitterer than the rest and had still less taste than both the Green and Black and the Michel Cluizel. When allowed to melt in the mouth, it could still be described as smooth: even after the initial snap. The final chocolate was the Amedel which was also very soft and very smooth overall. The unique aspect about this chocolate was its distinctive milky taste. The milky taste was very distinctive, but at the same time, was not as sweet. This is interesting since it is almost contradictory.

Then we moved on to the "Pepsi challenge" or "Coke challenge" (choose your bias). This is a very popular test where the subjects are given samples of both coke and Pepsi and asked to identify which is which (or in our case, which of the three cups was different from the other two. I, like most other people, was highly disappointed to find that my extreme preference for Coke did not translate into the results of the test. I was able to tell that one was Coke and the other was Pepsi, but I failed to recognize that the third cup was Pepsi. While I was able to get two of the three cups correct, I was more guessing than anything else. When I tried really hard, I could almost detect the difference in smell that others were talking about. I could, however, easily see the difference in carbonation.

Finally, we did some more testing on three more types of cheeses. The goat cheese was by far my favorite of the day, and was so good that I even eat it plain. It tasted very familiar, almost like an American cheddar. The Feta cheese I almost couldn't bring myself to try because it smelled  so bad. However, once I did try it, it wasn't so bad. There is only a hint of taste when you first put it in your mouth, but about a full second later, it hit me like a wave. At first, it was a little sour, and acidic, but that melted away into a bitter cheesy taste. Finally, the goat cheese was very soft and sour. It is not a cheese that I could see myself eating alone, but In the future, I will not be scared away by a dish, or snack that contains goat cheese. In contrast to the feta, The taste of the goat cheese hit you immediately. It is sour enough that even your lips tingle if they come into contact with the cheese. The sourness of the goat cheese is comparable to the lemon sample, with the difference being that the cheese lacked the fruity taste of the lemon. However, when the cheese was combined with the honey, it was extremely delicious. It is a very unique sensation that is nearly impossible to describe. However, I can say that the honey dialed down the sourness of the cheese. The sweet honey and the sourness of the cheese blended perfectly so that they tasted like a single entity. It truly loved it!