Margen
AMAYA ELORRIAGA, head of the tasting panel at a public laboratory: I coded sample 7 and I know which mill it comes from. My duty is to keep that to myself. Purificación and you tasted it blind, you handed in your score sheets, and you have spent twenty minutes trying to make the report change its mind.
PURIFICACIÓN BERMEJO, retired mill master and taster for twenty-two years: The report can still learn the word fusty.
IGNACIO VALCÁRCEL, agricultural engineer and taster for two years: It can also learn green fruitiness, clean bitterness and high pungency.
ELORRIAGA: It already knows those words. It has received them several times.
[The transcript notes that both tasters nod for incompatible reasons.]
BERMEJO: I have confirmed the defect over successive inhalations.
VALCÁRCEL: I have confirmed three virtues through technically impeccable sips.
ELORRIAGA: Slurps.
VALCÁRCEL: That is what I said.
BERMEJO: He said sips.
VALCÁRCEL: The report will record the technical intent.
ELORRIAGA: The slurp draws air in through the mouth and spreads the oil. Its elegance falls outside the procedure.
VALCÁRCEL: I appreciate the clarification. Some people confuse technique with bad manners.
BERMEJO: Some people have been tasting for two years and are already talking about some people.
ELORRIAGA: The professional age of opinions is withdrawn. Back to the glass.
BERMEJO: Dark cobalt blue, sample at 28 degrees, nose and mouth. All in order. Clear defect.
VALCÁRCEL: Dark cobalt blue, sample at 28 degrees, nose and mouth. All in order. Clear fruitiness.
ELORRIAGA: You have just agreed for nine words.
BERMEJO: Do not spoil it.
VALCÁRCEL: I agree with Bermejo.
ELORRIAGA: The blue glass stops the colour from influencing the assessment. A very green oil impresses before anyone smells it, and a pale one can raise suspicions that are just as unearned.
BERMEJO: We know that already.
VALCÁRCEL: Both of us. You may withdraw the lecture.
ELORRIAGA: I need a report that can survive a complaint.
BERMEJO: And we need it to reach the end of the session alive.
VALCÁRCEL: I agree with Bermejo again. This situation is starting to worry me.
ELORRIAGA: Two agreements against the chair. Now I understand why each taster works alone in a booth.
[The transcriber requests a booth of his own so he can finish a sentence without corrections arriving from three directions.]
ELORRIAGA: The panel brings together between eight and twelve tasters under a chair. The booths stop a grimace, a word or a volatile enthusiasm from spreading. Today the score sheets arrived separately. Then the two of you arrived together.
VALCÁRCEL: My enthusiasm has a sensory basis.
BERMEJO: His enthusiasm goes through partitions.
ELORRIAGA: A sensory basis fits in the report. Going through partitions would call for maintenance.
BERMEJO: The sample was properly covered.
ELORRIAGA: It was. The watch glass stayed on the glass until the moment of smelling. That holds the aromas in and keeps the temperature.
VALCÁRCEL: Twenty-eight degrees exactly.
BERMEJO: The thermometer has been here two years as well, I suppose.
VALCÁRCEL: The thermometer confirms my readings more courteously.
ELORRIAGA: The thermometer confirms the temperature. The rest remains under investigation.
BERMEJO: Clear fustiness.
ELORRIAGA: When you write fusty you are accusing the olives of having sat in heaps for several days and fermented before milling. It is better for that word to come out with an intensity attached, rather than with a bang on the table.
BERMEJO: The intensity is already marked on my sheet.
VALCÁRCEL: My sheet marks green fruitiness.
BERMEJO: You find green even on the form.
VALCÁRCEL: You detect fermentation in any oil that does not walk in apologising.
ELORRIAGA: Those two remarks are staying out. Try again with regulated vocabulary.
BERMEJO: Predominant defect: fusty.
VALCÁRCEL: Fruity, bitter and pungent.
ELORRIAGA: Better.
BERMEJO: The high pungency has made him lose all restraint.
VALCÁRCEL: The pungency comes from the polyphenols.
ELORRIAGA: So does the bitterness. They are natural compounds in the oil and both count as positive attributes. Dictate it like that if you want it in the report.
VALCÁRCEL: Let the record show that a tickle in the throat can go with a healthy, fresh oil. Plenty of people return a good bottle because they read that tickle as a fault, and then the shop assistant tries to explain polyphenols, the customer asks for an oil just as intense that leaves the throat alone, somebody rings the mill, the mill rings the distributor, and in the end an agricultural engineer finds himself defending, in front of a retired mill master, that a regulated virtue is still a virtue even when it is uncomfortable. I admit that customer lives entirely in my head, has no score sheet, and is holding up a session he was never invited to.
BERMEJO: On that I agree with Valcárcel: withdraw the customer.
VALCÁRCEL: And let our unanimity be recorded.
ELORRIAGA: Recorded. It lasted eleven seconds.
BERMEJO: My problem is still inside the glass.
VALCÁRCEL: Your problem predates the glass.
ELORRIAGA: Two words.
BERMEJO: Smells off.
ELORRIAGA: Perfect. One complete and usable contribution.
VALCÁRCEL: It also smells of fresh olives.
ELORRIAGA: That can coexist with a defect. The grade will be settled by the whole panel's sheets.
BERMEJO: Then order them.
VALCÁRCEL: First I want to defend the sample's complete experience.
ELORRIAGA: That box does not exist.
VALCÁRCEL: For now.
BERMEJO: Two years in and he is already requesting extensions to the form.
ELORRIAGA: The intensities are marked on ten-centimetre lines. Now they are put in order and the central value is taken: the median.
VALCÁRCEL: We could consider the arithmetic mean.
BERMEJO: Of course. That way one over-excited score would drag all the rest along.
VALCÁRCEL: I am glad the procedure protects you from yourself.
BERMEJO: It protects the others from you.
[The chair asks that the statistical properties of the median stop acquiring personal enemies.]
ELORRIAGA: The median withstands an extreme score because it looks at the central position of the ordered sheets. That explains the calculation I am about to enter in the report.
VALCÁRCEL: My sheet is at the moral centre.
BERMEJO: Morality has no box either.
ELORRIAGA: Thank you for sparing the chair some work.
VALCÁRCEL: I request a review of the aroma.
BERMEJO: So do I.
ELORRIAGA: The sheets are already final.
BERMEJO: I want to smell it again.
ELORRIAGA: To what end?
BERMEJO: To check that he is still wrong.
VALCÁRCEL: For that you can do without the sample.
ELORRIAGA: First efficient contribution of the discussion.
[Two inhalations are heard from the booths. The transcriber notes that the ban arrived in time to be understood and too late to be obeyed.]
ELORRIAGA: I shall record unrequested check.
BERMEJO: Record persistence of the defect.
VALCÁRCEL: Record persistence of the virtues.
ELORRIAGA: I shall record persistence, without awarding it to anyone yet.
BERMEJO: The fustiness comes before the pungency.
VALCÁRCEL: The fruitiness comes before both.
ELORRIAGA: The order of perception is informative, but the grade is set by the medians for fruitiness and defects.
VALCÁRCEL: The chemical analysis complies.
BERMEJO: The nose takes part too.
ELORRIAGA: Exactly. Free acidity has to stay at 0.8% at most to be in the running for extra virgin. That analysis measures fatty acids and other chemical parameters. Then comes the human panel, which assesses fruitiness and defects.
VALCÁRCEL: Sample 7 meets the analysis.
ELORRIAGA: Meeting it keeps it in the running for the top grade. The sensory result is still missing.
BERMEJO: That is where my fustiness comes in.
VALCÁRCEL: That is where our noses come in, plural.
BERMEJO: Thank you for discovering the panel.
VALCÁRCEL: Thank you for discovering fermentation.
ELORRIAGA: I withdraw both thanks as premature.
[A pause is recorded, intended for putting the sheets in order. Valcárcel makes sure it is recorded that he is not watching; Bermejo watches Valcárcel.]
ELORRIAGA: The median for fruitiness is above zero.
VALCÁRCEL: Confirmed.
BERMEJO: I never denied the fruitiness.
ELORRIAGA: The median for the predominant defect is also above zero. The intensity falls within the range corresponding to virgin olive oil.
BERMEJO: Fustiness confirmed.
VALCÁRCEL: Fruitiness, bitterness and pungency preserved.
ELORRIAGA: The virtues stay on the sheets. The presence of the defect rules out the extra virgin grade.
BERMEJO: And lampante?
VALCÁRCEL: Nobody has accused the sample of that.
ELORRIAGA: The intensity stays below the point that would send it to the lampante grade.
BERMEJO: Lampante would need refining before it could be sold for consumption. I said fusty, not catastrophe.
VALCÁRCEL: At last, a reasonable sense of proportion.
ELORRIAGA: Result: virgin olive oil.
BERMEJO: I request that it be recorded that I detected the defect.
VALCÁRCEL: I request that my three positive attributes be recorded.
ELORRIAGA: Everything is recorded. It is also recorded that arguing did not move a single mark on the scale.
BERMEJO: The median gives me the main point.
VALCÁRCEL: The median keeps my three virtues.
ELORRIAGA: Bermejo found the defect, Valcárcel defended the virtues, and the median has dismissed only the word extra.