Roastery Creates Gender-Specific Blends After Blind Cuppings

An Australian coffee roastery has created blends specific to gender preferences, after blind cuppings and anecdotal reports from hundreds of its customers.

The Hombre

The Australian News Corporation first reported on the interesting marketing tactic late last month, saying that Simone and Jason Dowding, owners of Blessed Bean Coffee Roasters and retail Bar in the New South Wales city of Wagga Wagga, had tested brews on some 700 customers to see if any patterns emerged between genders:

“We did a lot of surveys and used our customers as guinea pigs a lot,” Mr Dowding said.

“There’s a lot of debate as to whether men and women have different taste preferences but the results showed that men generally preferred deeper chocolates with the Brazilian pulp naturals and the women preferred lighter, fruitier tastes along the lines of the Ethiopian-wash coffees.”

The Dowdings then took those results to create two new signature blends, one marketed for men (The Hombre), and one marketed for women (The Señorita). Here’s more on each of those coffees from the Blessed Bean team. First, The Hombre:

Adventurous and courageous by nature. The Hombre embodies the essence at the core of every man. Flavours abound with deep chocolate, hazelnut, and a touch of tobacco. The subtle acidity and medium body bring balance to this brew. Lastly, ripe stone fruit will linger on the pallet. Hombre is reliable to the last drop.

And The Señorita:

The Señorita is a classic female. It is short and sharp up front which softens into a well rounded blend. This coffee displays ripe fruit characteristics with a brightness and acidity that’s apparent from the first sip. Underneath the crema is a full bodied buxom wench that oozes the sweetness of milk chocolate and caramel. This is a coffee that leaves an after taste of desire and the need for another cup. Brazilian, Guatemalan and Indonesian are the origins of choice for this spirited blend.

Naturally, food and drink producers tend to shy away from genderizing their products, in part to not alienate half their potential consumer base. But there is some evidence to suggest that, on the whole, differences do exist between the palates of men and women, with women often having naturally more developed taste buds.