Found my old coffee journal from 2018 and laughed at my own notes

I used to write down tasting notes like 'hints of burnt tire and regret' for a natural Ethiopian I tried back then. Now I actually enjoy that same roast from the same roaster downtown. Guess my palate finally grew up or I just got less dramatic.

3 comments

3 Comments

grant4781mo ago

Man oh man, @foster.tessa is really digging deep there. I get what you're saying but sometimes a bad cup of coffee is just a bad cup of coffee, not some symbol of personal growth or whatever. My palate still thinks that same Ethiopian tastes like burnt regret honestly.

owens.anthony1mo ago

Yeah that part you said about "learning what we actually like versus what we thought we should like" really stuck with me. But here's what I'm wondering - how do you even tell the difference between genuine change in your taste and just convincing yourself you like something because everyone else does or because you spent money on it? I mean I've been there with beer where I forced myself to drink IPAs for months telling myself I was acquiring the taste but really I just wanted to fit in with my buddies. So was that growth or was that just giving in to pressure? And with coffee especially since there's so much snobbery around it, I gotta ask - how do you know when your tastebuds actually grew up versus you just got tired of being the guy who complains about everything?

foster.tessa1mo ago

It's funny how retasting something years later can make you realize how much your tastebuds are tied to where you're at in life. I had a similar thing with pickled vegetables - used to hate the sourness as a kid, now I crave that tangy punch on a sandwich. We get less dramatic about things once we understand they're not a big deal or we just learn what we actually like versus what we thought we should like. Our preferences are always shifting underneath us, even when we think we've got them figured out.