Taste Without Taste
There is a simple exercise I often use to break the ice at the start of my storytelling, public speaking, scriptwriting, or creative thinking workshops.
I ask the participants:
“Think of a food you like. Now describe how it tastes. But here is the rule: you are not allowed to use any words that directly describe taste. No sweet, salty, spicy, bitter, or savory. Not even the words taste or delicious.”
The room usually changes immediately.
Some of them laughed. Some look confused. Some suddenly look as if their brains have been given an unfair assignment.
“But if we can’t talk about taste, how are we supposed to describe it?”
Well, someone almost always protests.
I usually hold my ground.
“Come on people, give it a try first.”
When the Shortcut Is Taken Away
Our brains love shortcuts.
When we talk about food, we usually go straight to the familiar vocabulary of taste. Sweet, salty, spicy, bitter, savory or simply delicious.
But once the shortcut is taken away, people begin to look for other ways in. They start talking about shape, size, texture, smell, memory, setting, analogy or metaphors, even the mood around the food.
One participant once told it like this:
“I eat this every Eid al-Fitr at my grandmother’s house.”
For readers outside Indonesia, Eid al-Fitr is the celebration that marks the end of Ramadan. In Indonesia, it is a time for family visits, asking forgiveness, and eating together. It's the biggest holiday of the year.
He continued:
“After the Eid prayer, we would ask forgiveness from our cousins. Then my grandmother would go to the kitchen and come back with a large tin. The moment she opened the lid, all of us would rush toward it. Before the tin even reached the table, our hands were already fighting for what was inside. We were laughing and shouting. But once each of us put it in our mouth, the whole room suddenly went quiet.”
That was a long story, but the strongest part was simple: "the room suddenly went quiet."
That one detail worked. It created a picture, and somehow that picture turned into taste. We could immediately imagine the food. Whether or not our imagination matched the storyteller’s actual food no longer mattered.
Another participant described a food this way:
“The moment it entered my mouth, my eyes shut tight, my lips pressed together, my cheeks pulled all the way to the sides, and my saliva started running.”
He said it while making the exact facial expression.
Of course, everyone in the room understood what kind of food could cause that reaction. It must be something very sour.
After that, more participants wanted to join in. One by one, they began describing food in their own way, while the rest of the room laughed along.
Then came the shortest story of all:
“Sluuuurp…”
Followed by a loud, rough:
“AAAAAHHHH!”
The room burst with laughter. Some clapped in joy. A few nodded, as if to say, yes, we know exactly what that is.
For context, this refers to a popular Indonesian coffee ad that people loved to make fun of until it became viral. In the ad, someone takes a loud slurp of coffee, then lets out an exaggerated “AAAAHHH” to show how good it tastes.
Seeing From a Different Angle
This small exercise almost always brings joy and surprise. It also sets the tone for the workshop. From the start, participants understand that they are expected to look beyond the obvious, move past common answers, and explore different ways of expressing themselves.
Once people are given a limit, they begin to realize that eating is not only about taste. It is also about sensation, memory, body reaction, atmosphere, and the story around the food. It turns out that taste is not only about taste.
In fact, the stories often become more alive precisely because the obvious words are not available.
And that is the whole point of the exercise.
Creativity often does not appear because we are short of ideas. It appears when we are forced to leave behind our old ways of thinking that has become too easy, too common, and too widely accepted.
Sometimes, one small limitation is enough to open a completely different way of seeing.
So now it is your turn.
Think of something sweet, then describe it without using the word sweet.
Yes, boys, you may also use this to describe your girlfriend. :)
Go.
Tangerang Selatan, 13 March 2026
