Crossmodal Expectations of Tea Color Based on Flavor: A Preliminary Study with Naïve Assessors

Tea is one of the world's most widely and frequently consumed beverages. What is more, tea is a drink that, unlike many others, is purported to have a number of health benefits as well. However, to date, there has been surprisingly little published research concerning the crossmodal associations that people have with tea beverages, specifically regarding tea's distinctive hue. In two experiments, we assessed the beverage colors that Chinese tea drinkers associate with different types of tea tasted while blindfolded. The results revealed that the color names that came to our naïve assessors' minds typically did not match the color names by which the tea is defined (e.g., red or green), or the actual color of the tea that they had just tasted. As such, the tea drinkers' expectations very often were different from the actual color of the beverage that they happened to taste. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.