You encounter some incredible people in this job, and none more so than Laurent Vernet. What this man doesn’t know about meat – and beef in particular – isn’t worth knowing. So keen is his palate, he can tell the sex, age and breed of a cow from a single bite of steak, and he’s become the subject of a study by the boffins at Bristol University trying to unlock the mysteries of taste.

A Frenchman who has lived in Scotland for 20 years, he has also brought some of the freestyle language of wine tasting to his role as head of marketing for Quality Meats of Scotland. Confronted by a steak that you or I might describe as “meaty”, he’ll reach for a vocab list full of “wet straw”, “uncooked mushrooms” and “digestive biscuits”.

“What I want to do is make consumers wonder about meat,” he says. “Not to tell them what is good and bad, but for them to recognise that beef is not just beef.”

What he looks for in his tastings – and he has conducted more than 200 for chefs and customers – is a balance between the three key elements of a perfect steak: flavour, texture and juiciness. Breed has less to do with the end result than you might think. Vernet is more concerned about how well the animal has been looked after. “One of the experiments at Bristol has been to eat stressed meat – maybe a cow which was put down because it had broken a leg. You can taste that straight away. It has an excessively sweet flavour and it squeaks against your teeth, like chewing polystyrene.”

I am sitting with Vernet and Herbert Berger, executive chef of 1 Lombard Street in the City, eyeing up an off-puttingly large pile of raw meat. “Most people never have more than one steak on their plate,” says Vernet excitedly, “so they never realise how different they all are.”

Vernet may say it’s not up to him to tell people what is right or wrong, but the steaks are very definitely to be cooked medium rare. “You need the juices to convey the flavour of the meat, and this is the best balance between moistness and flavour.”

First off is a comparison of a bull and a steer, as a castrated bull is known. “I don’t know why,” says Vernet, “but generally young ladies, especially teenagers, prefer the flavour of young bull, while men prefer steer.” He puts some of the bull in his mouth. “Now, do you notice that very sour, metallic taste? That’s the hormones. Otherwise, it has a very light beef taste. The steer, on the other hand, is much sweeter and more strongly flavoured.”

Next up is a Brazilian import, which accounts for 75 per cent of beef sold here, and Scotch beef. The Brazilian steak is flavourless, with a bitter aftertaste. “The problem here isn’t the breed, it’s the transport,” says Vernet. “It’s been vacuum-packed and has cooked in its own juices. And there’s very little fat, so little flavour. Pure animal protein all tastes the same. Without any fat, you can’t tell the difference between lamb, pork, chicken or beef. That’s why marbling is so important to flavour.”

We move on to White Park (“juicy, succulent, roast chicken!”), Highlander (“farmyardy”) and an Angus/Limousin cross (“macadamia nuts”) before rounding off with three different cuts from the same Aberdeen Angus. The fillet is condemned as being totally devoid of flavour (“It’s the muscle the cow would employ to spin a Hula Hoop, so clearly it never gets used,” says Vernet). The entrecôte, a typically French steak, fares better, but it is for the rib-eye that Vernet drops his façade of professional impartiality. “That is my favourite,” he declares. “For me, it is the best balance of flavour and strength.” And who are we to argue?

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