Coffee Love, Part 1 (The bitter years)

I love coffee. However it has taken a long time to develop that love.

Up until 3 years ago I didn't think I could make a good pot of coffee. Or more simply put, my coffee tasted like shit. But... was it me... was it the coffee... was it my tastebuds?

Now taste, and what and how we taste something, is subjective. Influenced by so many things. This is something coffee snobs and purists should take to heart. The human mouth has anywhere from 2,000-10,000 tastebuds. So if you only have 2,000 and I have 10,000 it stands to reason  that I would taste, or my brain would perceive things, differently. Yes?

Those people who can take one taste of a dish and tell you everything that's in it down to the 1/8 of a teaspoon of some herb or spice. The wine taster who can tell you the grapes were grown on a field with lavender after a small sip.

There are five basic tastes identified so far, sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. They say the entire tongue can sense all of these tastes more or less equally.There are several tastebud maps that shows where salty is perceived, sweet etc... But every mouth is different and over time things change our taste perception... medications, age, smoking, a stuffy nose... You can even change or train your 'taste'...

I know there are things over the years that I have 'grown' to like the taste of... and some I liked... I stopped. Kinda of like listening to Foreigner on 8 track when you are 12 years old... tastes change.

Take tilapia. It's good for you... cheap source of protein. But recently something in my mouth, brain, chemistry changed somewhere... and now I cannot eat tilapia without tasting dirt... musty, earthy, peaty, root cellar, wormy dirt... so bad I have to spit it out... I have even tried on several occasions to see if this was an isolated thing... and both restaurant and home cooked tilapia alike... always the same...  dirt!

Back to coffee...

When I was little coffee was Sanka or Tasters Choice at my grandmothers (I had a hippy mom... she drank tea). As I treat I would get a cup once in awhile... and I would stir heaping spoonfuls of sugar into it... it was delicious... the smell to this day of instant coffee brings me back to my childhood... so is sense of smell what determines if we like the taste?

All through school... it was not taste I was looking for, but rocket fuel... the stronger the better... and I was still adding sugar... But by now I was beginning to think it tasted "too" sweet... and then of course there was Sweet and Low... and Equal. The chemically laden pseudo sugars designed to pull the wool over your tastebuds...

My 20's was all about the hospital coffee with milk (the taste of fake creamer a turn off)... non-descript... warm... comforting... caffeinating...

Enter... the dread, evil Starbucks... and the over priced latte (which got me through my 30's :)

The dawning my my 5th decade was the reinvention of my coffee self...

To be continued...