The sensory responses of rural and urban Republic of South Africa (RSA) consumers tasting high and low connective tissue muscle prepared as a grill or slow cooked were examined. The carcasses used to provide taste panel samples were sourced from two suppliers in RSA and one in Australia. The Australian samples were sensory tested using Australian consumers and exported to RSA to be tasted by consumer groups to provide links back into the Meat Standards Australia database. The RSA cattle groups comprised 18 older pasture-finished Nguni bulls and 18 young feedlot-finished Bonsmara steers. The Australian cattle comprised 18 two-tooth pasture-finished Murray Grey steers that had not received hormonal growth implants. The Nguni carcasses from RSA were extremely lean. The pH for this group was high, with only one carcass having an ultimate pH of less than 5.7. Consistent with very high pH, the Nguni carcasses had very high meat-colour scores (mean score, 5). The Bonsmara carcasses were much heavier than the Nguni bulls and were also fatter. The Bonsmara steers had an extremely rapid pH decline with a mean temperature at pH 6 of 41°C. The Bonsmara carcasses had a low meat-colour score. The Murray grey cattle slaughtered in Australia were the heaviest group of cattle. The relationship between sensory scores and the allocated grades (2, 3, 4 and 5 star) showed there were only subtle differences both between rural and urban consumers in RSA and also between RSA and Australian consumers. Cooking method had little effect on the assessments of RSA urban and rural consumers. Correlations between the different sensory traits were generally high, with no difference between the RSA consumer groups and Australian consumers. Except for the Australian data, the lowest correlations were between juiciness scores and tenderness and flavour scores. This study showed that sensory scores from both urban and rural consumers did not differ substantially.