Two cups, one jug

Text C: an original fiction extract.

At the tasting session, my brother Leo studied the two cups as though one of them might confess. Cup A had been described as a special blend selected for the cafe's new menu. Cup B was simply called the ordinary option. We had volunteered to help our aunt choose wording for a drinks board, and I was determined to provide something more useful than saying both were nice.

I lifted Cup A, paused and announced that it had a deeper flavour. Leo nodded. He said B was flatter. On the form, I wrote rounded beside A and thin beside B. Our aunt collected the sheets without commenting. Across the table, another volunteer preferred B because it seemed less demanding. We discussed this for several minutes, growing more certain with every adjective.

Then our aunt brought out the jug. Both cups had come from it.

Leo laughed immediately. I did not. I checked the cups, looking for some difference in their position or temperature which might rescue my explanation. She said we had poured them at the same time, but she was not trying to prove that every sip must have felt identical. She wanted us to notice how the descriptions might have entered what we thought we were judging.

I said she should have warned us. She asked whether a warning that our expectations were being tested would have left us with the same expectations. I still disliked being made to look foolish, especially beside the form bearing my careful handwriting.

For the next round, we helped design the comparison. We used numbers instead of flattering labels and covered the containers. Each person wrote a response before discussing it. Our aunt asked us to separate what we noticed from what we imagined the drink ought to be like. She also wanted any preferences explained in ordinary language a customer might understand.

My numbered notes were shorter. One cup left a stronger taste after I swallowed; another seemed gentler. I preferred the gentler one, although Leo chose the first. We did not need to agree. When somebody suggested that the more expensive option must be the proper choice, I asked which part they enjoyed. The conversation became slower and, to my surprise, less competitive.

We were still a small group, drinking on one afternoon. Our aunt refused to write customers prefer this on the basis of our forms. She said the session could help her choose clear descriptions and identify questions worth asking again, not supply a grand announcement about everyone who might visit.

At the end, she offered me my first form. I nearly folded it before anyone else could see. Instead, I put it beside the later notes. The word rounded looked rather lonely without the expensive-sounding introduction which had supported it.

I asked whether the drinks board needed any of our impressive vocabulary. We drafted a simpler version, describing the actual choices without ranking the people who chose them. Leo suggested calling one the deep and mysterious option. This time I laughed before writing anything down.

You are the narrator. Write an article for your community newsletter about the tasting session and what it taught you.

In your response:

• describe your initial judgements and your reaction to the revelation
• explain how the later comparison differed and what it revealed
• evaluate what the session could reasonably contribute to the cafe’s menu and to your own approach

Base your response on Text C, developing its ideas in your own words. Write about 250 to 300 words. Up to 10 marks are available for reading and up to 10 marks for writing.