Glossary · Sensory
Triangle test
Definition
A discrimination test in which an assessor receives three samples, two identical and one different, and must identify the odd one. It establishes whether a difference is perceptible at all.
- Subject
- Sensory
In more detail
The triangle test answers a narrower question than tasting notes do, and answers it properly: it tells a producer whether a change in process actually changes the drink perceptibly, without asking anyone to describe or prefer it. A one-in-three guess rate makes the statistics straightforward.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
Sensory
Trained panel
A group of assessors calibrated against reference standards to use an agreed vocabulary consistently, so that their scores measure the drink rather than their preferences.
Sensory
Descriptive analysis
A formal sensory method in which a trained panel rates the intensity of each of an agreed set of attributes, producing a quantitative profile that can be analysed statistically.
Sensory
Blind tasting
Assessing a drink without knowing its identity, producer or price. Where the server also does not know, the tasting is double blind.
Fermentation
Bench blending
Making small measured trial blends of finished batches and tasting them before committing the tanks, so that proportions are chosen on evidence rather than arithmetic alone.
Where to go next
- Cider glossary — The whole vocabulary, by subject and A–Z.
- Comparisons — Terms that are only really clear when set against the thing they are not.
- Search — Finds terms by their aliases and by their spellings in other languages.
Sources
What this page rests on. Where a source is marked as registered rather than read, CiderHQ is recording that the body is authoritative on the subject without claiming to have worked through the document itself. See our evidence policy for what each state means.
Washington State University cider research programme
Washington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center · university · passage verified 2026-08-24
The single most useful open cider dataset CiderHQ has found. The programme’s cultivar performance database gives juice chemistry, orchard behaviour, bloom and harvest timing and cider-maker tasting notes for 73 cultivars grown at one maritime site over fifteen years, and — unusually — publishes its classification thresholds alongside its figures, so the classification can be checked rather than taken on trust. It also states outright that its results diverge from the English ones. Read in full on 2026-08-24 and transcribed into `data/trials/wsu-mount-vernon.ts`; four published figures were found to be impossible and are withheld there with their reasons.