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“It all depends on the market”: Taste as an economic fact

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  • Alexios Tsigkas

Abstract

How are taste judgments made and shared? Drawing on fieldwork among Ceylon tea brokers and buyers, the industry's de facto tea tasters, this article offers an ethnographic account of aesthetic judgment in practice. I ask, what makes a tea good? Tea tasters' unanimous response amounted to a market relativism of sorts that shifted attention away from the tasted object: “It all depends on the market.” Following my informants' contention, I show how industry actors are able to enact a tentative resolution to the fundamental paradox inherent in the judgment of taste, namely, its ostensibly subjective nature and simultaneous claim to objectivity. “The market,” invoked time and again by tea tasters, and imagined as inherently objective, affords the seamless translation of taste judgments into prices, intelligible and shareable quantities, prompting a reimagining of taste as an economic fact.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexios Tsigkas, 2025. "“It all depends on the market”: Taste as an economic fact," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(1), January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecanth:v:12:y:2025:i:1:n:e12330
    DOI: 10.1002/sea2.12330
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Donald Mackenzie & Fabian Muniesa & Lucia Siu, 2007. "Do Economists Make Markets? On the Performativity of Economics," Post-Print halshs-00149145, HAL.
    2. Bear, Laura, 2020. "Speculation: a political economy of technologies of imagination," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103433, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Daniel Scott Souleles & Matthew Archer & Morten Sørensen Thaning, 2023. "Introduction to special issue: Value, values, and anthropology," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(2), pages 162-168, June.
    4. Donald MacKenzie & Fabian Muniesa & Lucia Siu, 2007. "Introduction to Do Economists Make Markets? On the Performativity of Economics," Introductory Chapters, in: Donald MacKenzie & Fabian Muniesa & Lucia Siu (ed.),Do Economists Make Markets? On the Performativity of Economics, Princeton University Press.
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