Tasting Guides

Our Artisan Meat guides are designed to help you describe and calibrate the aromas, flavors, and textures of beef, pork, lamb, and poultry and to compare the differences between different farm & butcher teams. Once you’ve done your first taste comparison, you’ll never say “Tastes Like Chicken” or “This One Is Beefier” again!

How They Work

There are many attributes but we focus on three key criteria: Texture, Personality, & Impression. It is important to know that we are not seeking to find the “best” steak, burger, chop, or roast, thus, our scales do not go from worst to best. Instead, we want to help you objectively evaluate the meat from each farm and to discover your own personal preferences.

When comparing the same cut from different ranches, you’ll notice differences in Texture ranging from very chewy to very soft. Some prefer chewy beef; some do not. How about you?

Personality is a measure of flavor and complexity of flavor, which may range from Reserved (non-specific e.g. meaty, beefy) to Direct/Straightforward (e.g. savory, earthy) to Adventurous (layered or with distinct flavor notes such as Roquefort cheese).

“If you were seated next to this beef during a dinner party, what kind of personality would he or she have? Is he Reserved, hard to tease out what he’s all about? Maybe you just taste a single flavor, such as “beef”? Or is he the Adventurous sort, the life of the party, with layered & distinct flavor notes?”

Similar to finish with wine, some beef styles leave a longer-lasting Impression or finish on your palate.

“Now that you’ve met this beef, what Impression did he leave on you? If fleeting, would you be pleased to see him again? Or will you remember him years from now? Is that a pleasant or unpleasant thought?”

Flavor Notes

It can also be fun to notice general flavor notes or even specific flavors in meat. Categories include Earth Notes, Ocean Notes, and Fruit Notes and we’ve found flavors including blue cheese, toasted chestnuts, baked potato, and porcini mushrooms. You can download our guides here.