Our panel has established the following six criteria by which chili will be judged. This is a blind taste test. The judges will not know who made the chili until after they have tasted each sample and scored the chili on:

APPEARANCE
Does it look appealing?

AROMA
The sniff test

CREATIVITY / UNIQUENESS
Unusual ingredients or presentation (white bean chili, moose meat chili, etc)

TEXTURE
Not too thin or thick. Texture of meat should not be tough or mushy

TASTE/FLAVOR
Blending of spices and how well they have permeated the meat. Should have good flavoring and chili pepper taste (not too hot or not too mild)

AFTERTASTE
Persistence of a sense of flavor, should not be bitter or metallic, the hotness factor