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.

中文翻译：

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“这一切都取决于市场”：品味作为一个经济事实


品味判断是如何做出和分享的？本文借鉴锡兰茶经纪人和买家（该行业事实上的茶品鉴者）的实地调查，提供了实践中审美判断的民族志描述。我问，什么才是好茶？品茶者的一致反应相当于某种市场相对主义，将注意力从品尝的对象上转移开：“这一切都取决于市场。”根据我的线人的论点，我展示了行业参与者如何能够对品味判断中固有的基本悖论（即其表面上的主观性质和同时要求客观性）制定一个初步的解决方案。 “市场”被品茶者一次又一次地提及，并被认为是本质上客观的，它可以将品味判断无缝地转化为价格、可理解和可共享的数量，从而促使人们将品味重新想象为一种经济事实。