Association between colour of coffee in print media and consumer expectations

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate colour preference of coffee in print media and relationships between colour of coffee and expectations of tastes of coffee including quality. The visual assessments were conducted under two lighting conditions: daylight simulators and tungsten. This was done to investigate the differences in expectations between two lighting conditions. In the experiments, 40 image samples with different colours of coffee were assessed by two observers groups: 10 experts and 30 unexperts. All observers assessed all 40 images using a 1-9 scale, where 1 means the least and 9 means the most, for expectations of preference, quality, intention of purchase, flavour strength and tastes. It was found that the results from two lighting conditions and two observers groups were significantly different. The expert group preferred coffee images having high lightness and chroma, and associated them with quality of coffee. In addition, yellow was associated with sweetness. Both observer groups expected bitter taste from coffee images with low lightness.