The Blind Tasting That Humbled Everyone (A Story About What You Really Know About Cheese)

I organized the blind tasting because I was tired of arguments.

Every dinner party in our friend group eventually turned into a cheese debate. Someone would place a $28/pound aged Comté next to a $6/pound grocery store cheddar and declare the Comté “obviously better in every way.” Someone else would quietly prefer the cheddar but not say so, because admitting you enjoy affordable cheese in the presence of a cheese enthusiast feels like admitting you enjoy instant coffee at a barista convention.

So I designed an experiment. Eight cheeses. No labels. No prices. No names. Just numbered wedges on a board, pencils, and scoring cards. The question was simple: If you can’t see the price tag, can you still tell which cheese is expensive?

The answer humbled every single person at the table, including me.

Setting up the blind tasting

A good blind tasting isn’t complicated, but it needs a few rules to produce honest results.

The cheese selection

I chose eight cheeses spanning a range of prices, styles, and origins. The key was including both “prestige” cheeses and “everyday” equivalents in overlapping categories, so the tasting would reveal whether price predicted preference.

The lineup (which nobody knew until the reveal):

1. A $26/lb 24-month aged Comté from a Paris-trained cheesemonger
2. A $4/lb store-brand mild cheddar
3. A $18/lb Vermont artisan cheddar aged 18 months
4. A $8/lb Trader Joe’s unexpected cheddar
5. A $32/lb raw-milk Gruyère from a Swiss alpine dairy
6. A $6/lb pre-sliced deli Swiss cheese
7. A $22/lb artisan triple-cream Brie from a small French producer
8. A $7/lb supermarket Brie

I cut each cheese into identical small wedges, removed all rinds that might give away the identity (except the bloomy rind Bries, where rind is part of the experience), and arranged them on parchment paper labeled 1-8.

The scoring system

Each person scored every cheese on three dimensions:

• Flavor (1-10): How complex, interesting, and enjoyable is the taste?
• Texture (1-10): How appealing is the mouthfeel?
• Overall (1-10): Would you buy this cheese?

I also asked one bonus question for each cheese: “How much do you think this costs per pound?”

The rules

• No talking about the cheeses until everyone had finished scoring all eight
• Taste in order (1-8) with plain crackers and water between samples
• Write first impressions—don’t overthink

What happened

We had eight tasters. Here are the results that surprised everyone:

Surprise #1: The cheap cheddar scored higher than expected

Cheese #2—the $4/lb store-brand mild cheddar—did not win anything. But it didn’t finish last either. It placed fifth overall out of eight, ahead of the $6/lb Swiss and one of the Bries. Several tasters described it as “clean,” “simple,” and “pleasant.” One person scored it a 7 for overall enjoyment.

The $4 cheddar isn’t good cheese in the artisanal sense. It’s mild, one-dimensional, and engineered for inoffensiveness. But inoffensive is not the same as bad, and in a blind setting without the negative association of its price point, people evaluated it on its own terms and found it… fine. Unremarkable but not unpleasant.

Surprise #2: The Trader Joe’s cheddar rivaled the artisan cheddar

This was the evening’s biggest upset. Cheese #4—the $8/lb Trader Joe’s unexpected cheddar—and Cheese #3—the $18/lb Vermont artisan cheddar—were statistically tied in overall scores. The Trader Joe’s scored slightly higher on flavor with three tasters and slightly lower with two others. The average scores were within 0.4 points.

When I revealed the prices, the room went quiet. The $8 cheese had competed head-to-head with a cheese that cost more than twice as much and held its ground. Several tasters who had scored the Trader Joe’s higher looked genuinely sheepish.

The lesson: some mid-price cheeses are excellent values that punch well above their weight. The gap between “good” and “great” cheese is smaller than the price gap suggests.

Surprise #3: The expensive Gruyère won—but not unanimously

Cheese #5—the $32/lb raw-milk Swiss Gruyère—did win the highest average score. Its flavor complexity was genuinely in a different category: notes of brown butter, toasted nuts, caramelized onion, and a long, evolving finish that kept revealing new flavors. Six of eight tasters ranked it first or second overall.

But two tasters ranked it fourth. Their comments: “Too strong,” “A bit overwhelming,” “I’d enjoy this in small amounts but wouldn’t eat a big piece.”

This revealed something important: the “best” cheese is the cheese you enjoy, and some palates genuinely prefer milder, simpler flavors. The Gruyère was objectively the most complex cheese on the board—but complexity and enjoyment are not the same axis.

Surprise #4: The Brie divide

Cheese #7 (artisan triple-cream, $22/lb) and Cheese #8 (supermarket Brie, $7/lb) were the most polarizing pair. The artisan Brie was richer, funkier, and had a more developed bloomy rind. The supermarket Brie was milder, creamier in a simpler way, and had a thinner rind.

Five tasters preferred the artisan Brie. Three preferred the supermarket Brie. The three who preferred the supermarket version all said something similar: “I like Brie to taste like butter, not like a barn.”

The artisan Brie was objectively more complex. But “more complex” included flavors (earthiness, ammonia hints, mushroom funk) that some palates interpret as unpleasant. The supermarket Brie, with its mild, buttery simplicity, was more universally liked even though it was less interesting.

Surprise #5: The price guesses were wildly wrong

The bonus question—“How much do you think this costs?"—produced the evening’s best entertainment. On average:

• The $4 cheddar was guessed at $9/lb
• The $8 Trader Joe’s cheddar was guessed at $16/lb
• The $32 Gruyère was guessed at $20/lb
• The $7 supermarket Brie was guessed at $14/lb

Nobody—not one person—correctly identified the cheapest cheese as the cheapest. And the most expensive cheese was consistently undervalued.

What the tasting taught us

Lesson 1: Price doesn’t predict preference (but quality does predict complexity)

More expensive cheeses are generally more complex—they have more layers of flavor, longer finishes, and more interesting textures. But complexity is a separate quality from enjoyability. Many people genuinely prefer simpler flavors, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

The relationship between price and quality in cheese is real but not linear. The jump from $4/lb to $10/lb produces a noticeable quality improvement. The jump from $15/lb to $30/lb produces a subtler improvement that only trained palates consistently detect.

Lesson 2: Context shapes perception enormously

When you know a cheese costs $32/lb, you taste it differently. You look for complexity. You give it the benefit of the doubt. You use words like “nuanced” and “terroir.” When you don’t know the price, you just taste it, and your honest reaction might be “this is strong” or “this is weird” or “I don’t love this.”

Blind tasting strips away the context that shapes our perception, and what’s left is just you and the cheese. That’s humbling and liberating at the same time.

Lesson 3: The best cheese for you might not be the “best” cheese

After the tasting, I asked everyone to name the cheese they’d buy for everyday eating. The most popular answer was the $8 Trader Joe’s cheddar—the affordable cheese that competed with the artisan version. Not because it was the “best” cheese, but because it was the best intersection of flavor, versatility, and value for daily use.

For a cheese board or a special occasion, most people said they’d spring for the Gruyère or the artisan Brie. For a Tuesday sandwich, they wanted something good and accessible that didn’t require a trip to a specialty shop.

This is the key insight for cheese buying: you don’t need to eat the best cheese all the time. You need to know which cheese is best for each occasion, and that changes with context.

Lesson 4: Everyone’s palate is valid

The most important thing the blind tasting proved is that taste is personal. There is no objectively “best” cheese. There are cheeses with more complexity, more age, more tradition—but the cheese that makes your mouth happy is the right cheese for you.

The friend who preferred the supermarket Brie isn’t wrong. The friend who loved the Gruyère isn’t more sophisticated. They have different palates, and both palates are doing their job: telling their owner what they enjoy.

How to run your own version

A blind cheese tasting is the best cheese education you’ll ever get, and it costs about $80 and an evening.

Quick setup

1. Buy 6-8 cheeses across a range of prices and styles
2. Include at least two “comparison pairs” (expensive vs. affordable in the same category)
3. Remove all packaging, cut into uniform pieces, number them
4. Print simple scoring sheets (flavor, texture, overall, price guess)
5. Provide plain crackers and water
6. Enforce no-talking until everyone has scored everything
7. Reveal the identities and prices at the end
8. Discuss what surprised you

The golden rule

No judgment. The point isn’t to prove who has the best palate. The point is to discover what you actually like when nobody’s watching—including yourself.

Next steps

• Read Cheese Types for the full taxonomy of cheese families
• Explore How to Buy Cheese to navigate cheese counters and shops
• See Art of the Cheese Plate for building a board after you know your preferences
• Try Wine and Cheese Pairing for matching wines to your favorite cheeses
• Check Cheese Storage to keep your tasting cheeses at their best