What do we taste?

For a long time now, I have said that we are all experts in our own experience! It’s tacky, but it is (close to a pun) tongue-in-cheek.

The more I think about “What do we taste?” the more the question begs, how could anyone ever be accurate with flavour descriptors? Where in the world are you? What is your diet and what did you last eat? These factors are huge.

Most of the time, I will take a filter coffee home and brew it with Severn Trent’s ropiest water. At home, we are rural and at the end of the line. We have high TDS (total dissolved solids) and water I don’t drink without tea or coffee. I find this a great testing bed (I was going to use the word ground, I can’t get away from coffee puns today). If the coffee is tasting good with below-average water, as well as the roastery, we have a good chance of it tasting good where you are. What we can’t do anything about is you or me.

On a few occasions, I have brewed a filter on a Saturday morning. Using the same coffee, the same grind, the same machine and water from the same source. I have been disappointed. I can repeat the same in the afternoon and even the next morning and it will be great.  What’s going on? Lots. The night before, toothpaste and how many hours of sleep and the depth of it come into play.

I am a bit sleep-deprived now and am wary that coffee is tasting so good right, I need to be careful!

Am I way off on this one?