Filtered Taste: Whisky, Gender, and the Possibility of Direct Experience: A Phenomenological Inquiry

Presented by Téa Nicolae

Do we ever experience anything directly? Phenomenology prompts us to consider that experience is never unfiltered: we encounter the world through our bodies, histories, language, culture, and expectations. We generally relate to taste as a primarily physiological experience - an immediate encounter with what is present. But if experience is always filtered, can taste ever be direct?

Téa Nicolae is a Ph.D. researcher at the University of Edinburgh and founder of TasteVera and Women Vitae. She designs and facilitates women-focused whisky tasting experiences that combine guided sensory exploration with structured reflection. She has led over 40 sessions across Scotland, Europe, and South Asia. In her sessions, she uses The WhiskyBaba which generates sensory projections by mapping individual receptor biology and differences in women’s taste perception against whisky chemistry. She’s also conducted research on tasting behavior, consumer decision-making, and women’s experiences of whisky culture and consults on whisky purchasing, collection development, and cask selection for private clients.

Drawing on her work as a whisky consultant and organizer of whisky tastings for women, Téa will apply this question to whisky. Bringing together observations from whisky tasting as well as from using The WhiskyBaba, a physics-based engine that generates personalized sensory projections, she will explore how gender and lived experience shape what - and how - we taste.

This presentation is part of the 2026 online Global Taste & Smell Summit curated by the World Taste & Smell Association.