Long-term acceptability and choice of teas differing in sweetness

We measured people’s choice and changes in choice of three types of tea, each at a low and an optimum level of sweetness. Twenty-eight tea drinkers participated in an initial taste test session and 20 additional consumption sessions. During the first session they tasted the six tea samples, ranked them in order of preference, and otherwise familiarized themselves with the samples prior to the long-term experiment. In each of the 20 consumption sessions they selected a tea, drank it, rated how well they liked it, how tired they were of it, and their satisfaction with having chosen it. We observed four choice patterns: constant-switcher, acquired-liker, non-switcher, and systematic-switcher. Over the 20 sessions the liking of the low-sweet tea increased and the tiredness ratings of the optimum-sweet tea increased. These changes, however, did not increase the frequency with which they chose the low sweet teas. Initial liking significantly predicted choice for about half the panelists.