The Lie Your Tongue Tells You

Sweet. Fruity. Chocolatey.

Those aren't flavors in your coffee. They're memories.

Here's what actually happens when you taste that "blueberry" Ethiopian:

Coffee has over 800 volatile compounds. Blueberries have 90. Your morning cup is more chemically complex than the fruit it supposedly tastes like.

But here's the kicker – terroir rewrites the whole script.

Same variety, different soil, different story. That Geisha from Panama? Jasmine and bergamot. Same seeds planted in Colombia? Stone fruit and vanilla. The plant reads its environment like sheet music, translating minerals into molecules.

Professional tasters don't chase flavors. They chase relationships.

They're not hunting blueberries. They're mapping a landscape that only exists for thirty seconds on your palate.

Your brain wants familiar. Coffee wants to be wild.

Next time you taste "chocolate," ask yourself: is it really chocolate, or is it your tongue's best guess at something that has no name?

The most honest tasting note might be: "Tastes like this exact moment, in this exact place, with this exact bean that grew in soil I'll never touch."

One unnamed flavor at a time. Again.

— Y.