King Seven wrote:I think it is wise to separate "taste" and "preference" here.

We're all seeing the same Rothko hung on the wall, some of us will like it and some of us will not. We can all discuss its form, nuance, textures and colours.

Taste is, as Jim said, an evolutionary mechanism. Yes, there are anosmias and other genetic quirks of smell but not to the extent that to one person two different aromatic compounds would smell like apples and cement, while to everyone else they smell like two similar sandalwoods.

Science, specifically food science, went to great lengths to understand the mechanisms so they could exploit them. I see Coca-Cola as one of their great achievements. I know I shouldn't like it, I understand why, but I do love the stuff. (The cane sugar one though, not the evil stuff in plastic bottles. Well, not as much!)

Yeah, I could have made that clearer. But I am talking about preferences, not about raw taste acumen.

Many of our preferences are out of a job, now that we don't have to "prefer" food over poison. Aesthetics in general is about harnessing these out of work abilities into some form of play, be it enjoying Rothkos versus De Koonigs or Coke versus Pepsi. It's similar to sports, in which we harness and enjoy our physical abilities in games now that we don't have to trudge through the landscape to stay alive.

It's more fun playing bridge than old maid because bridge rewards skill and knowledge and old maid doesn't. It's also more fun to play bridge well than to play it poorly. That doesn't mean that good bridge players are better than poor ones or old maid players, but it does mean they are enjoying themselves more.

Drinking coffee is an activity that rewards skill like bridge, and it becomes more fun to drink coffee as one gets better at it. But like any skilled activity, it requires a language of appreciation and a fund of experiences making that language meaningful to be able to share with others.

I'm not sure if Coke is like bridge or old maid, whether its marvelous intricacies open up to the taster trained in food science. It would be interesting to find out.

In modern art, the language of appreciation itself has become part of the game, so that enjoying a Rothko simultaneously requires arguing about the complete theory of Rothko aesthetics -- that's a little too much skill for my blood. And I'd rather be talking about cupping than coffee aesthetics. But we need these discussions on occasions to reassure ourselves that appreciating coffee is a meaningful activity, not just some elitist humbug.

BTW, congrats, the Brits win again. Do I need to move from Chicago to London now to get really good espresso?

zin1953 wrote:Since the only "flaws" in coffee are things like stale beans, shots pulled at too high a temperature, etc., I am not sure if a "Le Nez du Café" would be as effective . . .

Jason, I believe "Le Nez du Café" includes scents that are useful for honing one's descriptive abilities (e.g. narrowing a flavor from nutty to peanut vs. almond vs. hazelnut), but also scents to help identify defects such as rubber, ash, ferment, etc. It's a very interesting tool for a cupper; your perspective that "the only flaws in coffee are stale beans, off-temperature, etc." Coffee is an agricultural product that is quite sensitive to the care and methodology used in caring for it as it grows and processing it after it's picked, not to mention the art of roasting. There are a myriad of flaws that a roaster or grower needs to be able to identify in a coffee in order to ensure that they grow/roast/sell/use top quality coffee, just like the wine industry. One could argue that such taste acumen are unnecessary for the consumer, but that seems to cut to the core of the issue at hand... one can appreciate much more as a consumer when one learns the exercise of identifying and appreciating these details. Anyway, my point is simply that I expect that a collection of coffee scents is just as useful to a budding coffee connoisseur as a similar collection of wine scents would be to a nascent wine aficionado.

Thanks to everyone for weighing in on this topic; it's quite timely for me. But I'm going to have to indict you, Jim, for hypocrisy. You're denouncing things that discourage rational thought, but your insights are so well-thought-out that it seems they themselves are discouraging me from applying any rational thought to this. Shame, shame...

another_jim wrote:Again, to say "I like it because of MY preferences," is to say "thou shalt not question what I do."

For some, to say "I am being objective" is to say "thou shalt not question what I do".

Wittgenstein?

malachi wrote:You have to be kidding.
And what do you base this pearl of wisdom on?

I can't take people who believe japanese people have magic tongues capable of tasting 5 flavours and that every taste is a combination of 5 flavours serious.

shadowfax wrote:Wittgenstein?

I was rephrasing another_jim. Wittgenstein was a bit like that in his early years, but he got over it.

Hi fellows. I see this has taken an interesting road.

The appreciation of sight is based on outward characteristics, meanwhile flavor isn't. Ancient Greek art was appreciated by outward characteristics. Beauty was on the form and shape. But in the romanticism period, it was the other way around. Beauty was an inward characteristics. It was the faces and expressions that mattered. Actually, it was a reaction against seeing the world through reason. Some people had an obsession towards reason and started doing geometric shapes on the gardens. For example, during the period of reason expansion, all the sudden, only gardens with geometric shapes were loved and the other gardens were hated.

Taste is an inward appreciation. And because of that, its appreciation depends on individual previous experiences.

Cheers

Hi guys,

I actually agree with malachi here (not that anyone gives a crap anyway). An example I can give from my own life is milk taste. I've spent 90% of my life drinking UHT milk, I like how it gets a bit sweeter at higher temps and generally I think it tastes quite good (the full fat stuff). When I came to the UK I discovered that most people here drink 'fresh' milk, homogenised or filtered. I know I drank that stuff a couple of times back in Poland, but didn't really like it. Still when I was having problems with frothing on my Andreja I decided to buy some, simply to try it out and see how well it froths. Taking a sip reminded me why I didn't like it a few months earlier, to me it tastes like talcum powder dissolved in water, it has a plastic aftertaste and tastes sort of like white waterpaint. Heck I can even taste the stuff in cappuccino and I think that UHT milk tastes sooooo much better. So after that experience I decided to ask on our European coffee forum (TMC) why do British people drink the filtered/homogenised stuff instead of UHT, which too me tastes better. The replies were quite surprising, most UK residents said that UHT tastes reallly bad and their 'fresh' milk is better, taste more like real milk and how it should (funny stuff because my girlfriend used to drink a lot of milk straight from cows when she was little and she says UHT is closer to it taste-wise). I guess it comes down to what your tastebuds are used to and even though I still prefer UHT I can't say that all British people have bad tastebuds.

The same applies to Italians and their espresso, they are used to something specific and having drank that for their whole lives it's hard to convince them that a great SO double you've just made is actually good.

Regards,
dsc.

shadowfax wrote:Anyway, my point is simply that I expect that a collection of coffee scents is just as useful to a budding coffee connoisseur as a similar collection of wine scents would be to a nascent wine aficionado.

Agreed.

Bluecold wrote:It never escaped us. The four flavour thing is a fairytale. People telling you about that japanasians have got 5 flavours are just trying to impress you with their AWSUM knowledge about foreign cultures.
The only thing "umami" is good for is that it's a telltale to spot impressionable idiots.
For example, 'fishy' is a very definite flavour. Fishy isn't sour, bitter, sweet, or salt or even umami. It's just fishy.

The tongue can only taste 4 tastes. The rest of the taste experience comes from olfaction. Just talk to someone who has lost the sense of smell.