Read This Before Concluding ANYTHING Regarding Blend Preferences
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Damn, you must get palate fatigue around here all the time.
In my opinion, and that’s all it is, as I have no scientific basis, but I think most people can learn to taste, and taste deeply into whatever…
It took me several years to taste beyond just smoke. In conversations on here, an old member named Pruss suggested that I go to coffee tastings and discuss taste there. Well, I’m just not a coffee connoisseur. But, I was interested in wines. I had just never understood why people liked the taste of it. So, long story short, I got into wines and going to tastings. Making wine, and then joined a bourbon club.
I think it’s perfectly fine to smoke or drink without paying deep attention to it. Some guys drink for effect. Some just for camaraderie. And, some for the enjoyment of tasting different things. Maybe the effect isn’t a goal at all, but a side effect, to keep the amount in check, moderation.
I can set down and pull notes of this and that. But, this isn’t what I enjoy the most about smoking. Sometimes I’ll pop a tin and enjoy tasting and exploring the blend, but find that it’s just not an all day smoker for me. Maybe I never come back to it. Then other times I’ll pull out an all time favorite and smoke it without giving it a thought. I don’t really have a goal in tasting tobaccos, other than for curiosity. Sometimes I find a new one to stock up on and smoke more often. Sometimes I may decide that although I could smoke it all day, for some reason, I don’t care to stock up.
But, ultimately, I think that even a supertaster has to learn how to become conscious of the tastes. If that’s a thing. Or maybe, everyone can learn, but just can’t focus enough to be come conscious of it.
This sort of thing interests me.
It took me several years to taste beyond just smoke. In conversations on here, an old member named Pruss suggested that I go to coffee tastings and discuss taste there. Well, I’m just not a coffee connoisseur. But, I was interested in wines. I had just never understood why people liked the taste of it. So, long story short, I got into wines and going to tastings. Making wine, and then joined a bourbon club.
I think it’s perfectly fine to smoke or drink without paying deep attention to it. Some guys drink for effect. Some just for camaraderie. And, some for the enjoyment of tasting different things. Maybe the effect isn’t a goal at all, but a side effect, to keep the amount in check, moderation.
I can set down and pull notes of this and that. But, this isn’t what I enjoy the most about smoking. Sometimes I’ll pop a tin and enjoy tasting and exploring the blend, but find that it’s just not an all day smoker for me. Maybe I never come back to it. Then other times I’ll pull out an all time favorite and smoke it without giving it a thought. I don’t really have a goal in tasting tobaccos, other than for curiosity. Sometimes I find a new one to stock up on and smoke more often. Sometimes I may decide that although I could smoke it all day, for some reason, I don’t care to stock up.
But, ultimately, I think that even a supertaster has to learn how to become conscious of the tastes. If that’s a thing. Or maybe, everyone can learn, but just can’t focus enough to be come conscious of it.
This sort of thing interests me.
The reason for bringing the board's attention to the entire business of taste variability in humans was simply as baseline information.
Given that approximately 22 quintillion words per nanosecond are exchanged on the Interweb regarding pipe tobacco, from reviews, to old vs. new, to arguments, to aging effects, to what xyz leaf tastes like, etc. etc. etc. ... it seemed relevant.
Given that approximately 22 quintillion words per nanosecond are exchanged on the Interweb regarding pipe tobacco, from reviews, to old vs. new, to arguments, to aging effects, to what xyz leaf tastes like, etc. etc. etc. ... it seemed relevant.
I don't understand how you can over or under taste tobacco. Tobacco only has 2 flavors. Good and Bad.
Very interesting! Thanks for the link...Forgive the lengthy response but...I was just watching a Youtube review where two fellas were reviewing Amphora full aroma....I happen to like the blend...not a top 10 for me, but I keep some for when the mood hits me....The one guy (both experienced pipers) just trashed it unmercifully...bad flavor...etc. WHAT GOT ME WAS HIM SAYING HOW IT GAVE HIM TONGUE BITE BADLY....I have NEVER been bit by Amphora....I freight train a bowl and still no bite....So I read your link and at the bottom I find this... "Supertasters tend to have more fungiform papillae and pain receptors than tasters and non-tasters"Supertaster - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
So, maybe I'm not a "supertaster" and this fella is...Lol!
Anyway...I know everyone has their preferences...I do too...No matter how I fall on the taste receptor spectrum I like what I like! No apologies here...The review kinda put me off a bit. Hey, if you don't like something...don't trash it....Others may enjoy it. It just isn't for you. People in the comments were like...I'm glad you warned me...I'll stay away from that blend...THAT is a shame...Remember we all have differing tastes. I would recommend try yourself and determine if it is for you or not.
(I assume Amphora full aroma will be discontinued as it is a MacBaren product)
And there you have it. I can’t tell you what flavors, elements, secret ingredients, etc. are. I just know what I like.
Aroma perception through tasting is definitely a skill which can be learned through practice.
Likewise, some people have a head start on the learning because of the concentration of taste buds and retro-nasal aroma preceptors that they have.
Neither of these things amount to a hill of beans if the person who has the ability to taste doesn’t want to explore what things taste like.
This is why I encouraged Cosmic to attend coffee tastings… wine and bourbon are just as good. A formal tasting creates a consistent process for tasting. Which makes the mechanics of tasting the same, and the differences discerned by the taster are “what” they taste and not how.
The first step in discovering taste is asking the question, “What am I tasting?” … usually while tasting/smoking.
Smoke with intention to determine what you’re tasting/perceiving.
Have fun. Explore.
— Pruss
Likewise, some people have a head start on the learning because of the concentration of taste buds and retro-nasal aroma preceptors that they have.
Neither of these things amount to a hill of beans if the person who has the ability to taste doesn’t want to explore what things taste like.
This is why I encouraged Cosmic to attend coffee tastings… wine and bourbon are just as good. A formal tasting creates a consistent process for tasting. Which makes the mechanics of tasting the same, and the differences discerned by the taster are “what” they taste and not how.
The first step in discovering taste is asking the question, “What am I tasting?” … usually while tasting/smoking.
Smoke with intention to determine what you’re tasting/perceiving.
Have fun. Explore.
— Pruss
This probably explains why I hate grapefruit with a passion and most people do not object to it.
Super tasters aren’t always great professional tasters, they just have a quantifiable ability to taste things most other people cannot.
Also, I’m pretty sure there are more than a dozen professional footballers named Jesus in leagues around the world at the moment.
— Pat
Our friend Jim Minks is a super taster of tobaccos. I’ve not ever radically disagreed with any of his reviews, although I can’t taste raisins, nuts, figs, and such from tobacco.
One of the strongest disagreements my Grandmother had with the Beverly Hillbillies series was that Granny, the character based on her, was a moonshine maker. For the benefit of the children of impressionable years who watched the show they called it Granny’s spring tonic, but it was clear to adults Granny twisted the barley corn.
Because of the noble sacrifice of JW Ray, a distant many times removed cousin of mine, the local moonshiner was not hung by a mob of elders at the direction of his mother, when he died after three days and nights of agony, bleeding from his eyes, from the effects of one sip of bad timber made liquor.
Ray died not playing Judas, and the famous Walking Preacher of the Ozarks Guy Howard slippped through the timber to warn the guilty party so he could escape to Benton county.
After the death of JW Ray, the church elders changed the protocol of moonshine tasting.
The maker had to give the first sip to the biggest drunk in the area.
And if he died or went blind, the liquor maker had that many days head start to run.
Every old drunk in the surrounding counties died of old age, because of that rule.
One of the strongest disagreements my Grandmother had with the Beverly Hillbillies series was that Granny, the character based on her, was a moonshine maker. For the benefit of the children of impressionable years who watched the show they called it Granny’s spring tonic, but it was clear to adults Granny twisted the barley corn.
Because of the noble sacrifice of JW Ray, a distant many times removed cousin of mine, the local moonshiner was not hung by a mob of elders at the direction of his mother, when he died after three days and nights of agony, bleeding from his eyes, from the effects of one sip of bad timber made liquor.
Ray died not playing Judas, and the famous Walking Preacher of the Ozarks Guy Howard slippped through the timber to warn the guilty party so he could escape to Benton county.
After the death of JW Ray, the church elders changed the protocol of moonshine tasting.
The maker had to give the first sip to the biggest drunk in the area.
And if he died or went blind, the liquor maker had that many days head start to run.
Every old drunk in the surrounding counties died of old age, because of that rule.
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sometimes with a blend I think that can muddy everything a bit.
I've only played rugby at high school level for one year, but for maybe 10 minutes of one game I had to cover for full back.
Knocked me up like nothing else.
Jesus has my utmost respect.
The palate develops the more you throw at it, like muscles develop the more you exercise. That's my theory, anyway.
Preferences are a separate thing from ability to taste.
I was forced to play Rugby Union at school. It was all part of growing up and being British.
Preferences are a separate thing from ability to taste.
I was forced to play Rugby Union at school. It was all part of growing up and being British.
Growing up to be considered ever-so-vehry British, though, required playing the Eaton Wall Game...
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Out of curiosity, i.e., nosey, what position did you play? I was loosehead.
