Today we talk with Dr. J. Nikol Jackson-Beckham, the principle behind Crafted for All, a consultancy that helps craft beverage companies and organizations be more inclusive, equitable, and just, about descriptive tasting language for beer, how culturally informed those vocabularies can be, and how the tasting experience can be used to invite newcomers into craft beer.

In this episode we talk with Hazel Lee, an international chocolate judge and the creator of Taste with Colour: The Chocolate Tasting Flavor Map. We talk about how Hazel got into bean to bar chocolate, what led to the development of her flavor map, and how it’s used to deepen and inform the experience of tasting chocolate for both newcomers and experienced tasters.

In this episode we hang out with artist Katie Clark Gabbard as she uses her paints, brushes, and canvases to interpret and express what her senses of taste and smell experience when presented with beers and chocolates without knowing anything about them.

Our senses are made of magic (driven by really cool science), and engaging our senses by tasting chocolate can transport us to other places and times, summon memories, evoke emotions, and provoke imagination.

Today’s guest is a chocolate educator who uses chocolate as a way to travel the world, recalling places she’s been and imagining ones she hasn’t, and helping others to do the same. All that’s required is an open and curious mind and a piece of chocolate. Join us for a conversation with Sanna Forslund about traveling through our senses, tasting chocolate with a sense of wonder, and how the natural world and the people around us can help us grow in our ability to do both.

Tasting craft beer or bean to bar chocolate can be a beautiful and profound experience. We engage all of our senses when we taste craft beer and bean to bar chocolate, an experience that engages our memories, emotions, and imaginations as well. In this episode we discuss the process of tasting craft beer and craft chocolate and explore how this connects us to ourselves, the world around us, and the people we meet.

As craft beer works to be more inclusive, the language we use to describe beer needs to be examined. In this episode Dr. J Nikol Jackson-Beckham talks about where cultural biases are found in beer language and how we can learn to use descriptive sensory language to welcome newcomers and learn from others.

As I fell in love with craft beer and bean to bar chocolate, I noticed something curious happening: the role faith had once played in my young life of pushing me to explore my identity and experiences, contemplate my world, and experience wonder and connection to something bigger than myself was now transferring more and more to my senses. The quest for the eternal had become a celebration of the ephemeral.

Our flavor vocabularies for beer & chocolate are affected by so many things we rarely think about.