• 1 Y. Kishi & S. Hamamatsu, “Globalization of Japanese Sake, How Japanese Sake crosses borders?”, In (...)

1In terms of consumption, sake has been seen mostly in Japanese restaurants around the world, but there is a push to promote, educate and serve consumers sake in restaurants and bars outside where it is traditionally found. Countries like USA, Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong are seeing steady growth of Japanese sake consumption1.

• 2 H. Song, W.C. Gartner & B. Marlowe, “Does objective information affect consumers’ willingness to p (...)

3This study is apart of a larger study that was conducted in Hong Kong, S.A.R., inside an upscale independent hotel’s lobby restaurant from March-April of 2018. Measurement items were taken from a previous study2and adapted after consultation with two Sake Samurais, a title given by the Japan Sake Brewers Association Japanese for ambassadors of sake to only about 70 persons in the world.

• 3 S. Charters & S. Pettigrew, “The dimensions of wine quality”, Food Quality and Preference, 18(7), (...)
• 4 S. D’Alessandro & A. Pecotich, “Evaluation of wine by experte and novice consumers in the presence (...)

7Overall liking was higher for the sake when tasted blind than when information about was given. A previous study in wine found that novice wine consumers rely more heavily on extrinsic information when assessing wine3. In addition, another wine study found that when consumers assessing quality spend more time focusing on extrinsic information, than briefly looking at the information, quality was negatively impacted4 It is important to note, that the majority of the sake consumers in this study did not have much knowledge about sake. The results of this study may also be attributed to the fact that most of the respondents were novice sake consumers and when presented with information, the results were negatively impacted.

• 5 D. Burnham & O. Skilleas, “Categories and appreciation—A reply to Sackris”, Journal of Value Inqui (...)

8The results also indicated that consumers are willing to pay more for sake when given extrinsic information than tasting it blind. As Burnham and Skilleas 5 point out repetitively in their argument that novice wine consumers cannot accurately assess wines when tasting them blindly and their assessment needs the extrinsic information to be more accurate. This could be the case for sake as well. The novice respondents did not know or understand how to assess sake which resulted in overall liking being higher when tasting the sake blindly than given information.