Is Your Tongue Reliable?

By: TJ Grisel, Beyers Analytical Brewing Sciences, LLC

Recently the Beyers Analytical Brewing Sciences team attended Kombucha Brewers International (KBI) KombuchaKon in Long Beach, CA. We had the pleasure of conducting the Sour Unit Case Study with KBI. While speaking with participants and collecting results two observations became apparent.

1. Many people are not aware of how Titratable Acidity (TA) can help them achieve a consistent product.
2. Many people are using their tongue or taste perception to determine if their kombucha is at the flavor standard in which they prefer.

We've previously discussed how using TA can help to achieve a consistent product. So let's address the question; how reliable is your tongue?

While the tongue may be a good indicator for you, the question that comes to mind is: Is your tongue repeatable if someone else needs to work in your process? Is the taste test of your tongue scalable?

We would bet that anyone reading this remembers the tongue map in which the tongue is depicted to show where certain flavors hit. What you may not realize is that this is a fallacy; taste is not sectioned off to different parts of the tongue. Sweet, salty, sour and bitter taste receptors are distributed all over the tongue. Here is the thing, these taste buds diminish with time due to many factors like age. Unless you are like Benjamin Button and getting younger over time (lucky you) then using your tongue to create quality brew is not your best option.

Now don’t get us wrong, your perception of taste is important but if you can put a value to it to make repeatable and testable with a cost-effective option then why not start measuring TA today?

Reach out to us to start learning how you can rely on data and not your tongue.