Comment on Anon works in a restaurant

scytale@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

• bigoljim@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Side by side, trying one after the other. I can tell they taste different. But walking into a place blind, and only getting one. I think it might be hard to tell.

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  • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Side by side you’ll notice the little kick depending on strength. But you’d likely be full placebo none the wiser.

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    • Klear@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      I was at a concert drinking my fourth beer, getting nicely buzzed when someone told me those were alcohol-free and I just sobered up instantly. It was awful.

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      • brbposting@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Ouch, your wallet

        Image

        Alcohol-free buzz worked on TV too

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• bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Taste-wise? Probably not. But I’d know by 11am because the caffeine withdrawal would start and I’d get headaches.

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• rockSlayer@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  I’m a pretty avid coffee enjoyer, and I can’t tell the difference. The stuff that you can buy chemically decaffeinated are made by brands that generally sell lower quality coffee beans in the first place

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  • thanks_shakey_snake@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Good roasters also usually have a decaf roast on the go. You can taste the difference, but if you’re just getting some random restaurant’s drip coffee, you’d probably just assume a bunch of things are off about it anyway, so “it’s secretly decaf” wouldn’t necessarily rank very high.

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    • LittleBorat2@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Decaf needs to be fresh and in bean form. I freeze them because they get bad much quicker due to porosity after the treatment to pull out the caffeine.

      I also don’t think you would be able to tell the difference with good decaf.

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• Akasazh@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  As someone who works in taste, people tend to overestimate their tasting abilities. Alcohol free beer, meatless snacks, etc. When presented without focusing attention to taste, people generally don’t notice.

  If you give both options and are forward about it they will be 50% correct in discerning the ‘alternative’. Realization comes more clearly in the absence of physiological change (no inebriation, no caffeine effect).

  However if people do find out you’re cheating them you can sell legit product all day, but people will still doubt you. So don’t expect long term business.

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  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Alcohol free beer

    Um, the smell alone is a dead giveaway, since alcohol has a very distinct smell.

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    • CodexArcanum@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Beer doesn’t usually smell of ethanol, it smells like hops and yeast. Since most AF beers are built to model light ales anyway, I can hardly tell. I’ve also gotten really into mocktails lately and with the right mixes of bitters and syrups most of them are significantly better than real cocktails. With those, that gasoline taste of ethanol is noticeably absent in a good way!

      I know exactly how caffeine affects me though, and would pretty quickly realize I’d been given decaf.

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      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Really? I don’t drink, so maybe I’m more sensitive to the smell, but beer of all variety has the same alcohol smell that wine and liquors have. Yeah, there’s hops and yeast in there as well, but there’s also that alcohol smell.

        I actually like that smell oddly enough, but it’s very distinctive. I’m also very used to the smell of yeast (we bake bread fairly often) and malt (I love AF malt beer), but I’m not as familiar with the smell of hops, so I just assume that’s the “beer” smell I’m smelling.

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    • Akasazh@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Old style AF beers had a distinct malty musty smell. But with new techniques AF beers can be indistinguisable. Certainly if hop foreward

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      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        They’re probably more similar, but there’s no way they can mimic that distinctive alcohol smell (same smell in wine and liquor). I’d take a bet any day that I can distinguish any AF from regular beer, provided the regular beer is at least the typical 4-5% ABV.

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  • RobertoOberto@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    As someone who works in taste

    Is this an exotic way of saying that your a chef?

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    • Akasazh@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      No I’m a sommelier

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• RecluseRamble@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Only if you’re sensitive to caffeine.

  My sister would feel the difference because her heart goes nuts if she has regular coffee. I wouldn’t since I’m an addict with high tolerance. Maybe the headache around noon would make me suspicious but probably not.

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• ipha@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Side by side I could pick out bad decaf, but I’d struggle to notice good decaf.

  On its own I’d just assume I was given a bad to average cup of coffee, which is what I would expect anywhere but home.

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• doggle@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Anon says it was a restaurant that happens to serve coffee; not a dedicated coffee shop. So, honestly, probably not. Chances are the coffee would be stale, burned, or just plain poorly brewed regardless of what beans were actually used.

  A lot of whining is done about decaf, but it takes a pretty refined palate and a lot of experience consciously tasting the differences to be able to reliably tell the difference by taste alone.

  The biggest giveaway is the near total lack of a caffeine buzz, even after several cups. But the placebo effect will go a long way to mitigate that.

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• Artyom@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  At a cheap diner? You’d have a hard time telling cuz even when you use regular coffee, the caffeine content is pretty low.

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• southsamurai@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Depends on the coffee.

  I developed a sensitivity to caffeine, it basically throws me into a weird heart racing thing at any but the smallest doses.

  But I freaking love coffee. So I buy decaf. If you shop around, find a few brands that do water process decaf, you’ll end up with something that’s good. Not just good enough, but good.

  But the chemical process decaf, yeah, I can tell a difference blindfolded. Literally, I won a bet doing it.

  The typical name brands, they usually have a fairly over processed taste to begin with. So it’s harder to detect, and I can’t tell the difference as clearly. It’s there, but you have to already have compared them before you can tell blind.

  Thing is, part of that is how you drink coffee. If you’re drinking it out of habit, or on the go, your brain is going to filter the taste out in favor of other sensory input. You have to be drinking it for the coffee itself, paying attention to the experience.

  Chemical process decaf has this layer of unpleasant metallic tang to me. Water process tastes like the same basic roast and bean, just slightly less intense. Things like floral notes get a little muted.

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• psud@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  You don’t expect good coffee in restaurants, and it’s hard to tell between bad coffee and bad decaff

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• general_kitten@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  At least the ones i have tasted decaf espresso does taste more weak but might have been because my decaf beans were noticeably older and the freshness seems to be one of the biggest factors. If i took decaf coffee somewhere based on my knowledge i would likely just assume that it is old/low quality/not brewed strong enough before i would assume its decaf

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