Even though I've been drinking coffee for quite awhile and involved myself in the enthusiast aspects of coffee for some time, one thing that I haven't managed to do is really open up my palette. I often find myself responding like TJ in the "sommelier" Sonic commercial when tasting coffee:

When I read the tasting notes or impressions from sharper tongues than mine, I can certainly get the sense of those flavors-- well, sometimes, other times I can't even define, let alone relate to, the flavors some people find-- but I can't yet pick them out myself, beyond either the very general fruity, chocolately, or, at times, specific flavors if the impression is really strong. I had the same experience when I recently took a cheese class-- my tongue was only able to pick out the more general obvious flavors. My tongue, it seems, lacks tact.

I admit here that my coffee drinking runs to the milk-colored variety-- cappuccinos for espressos and plain coffee with milk otherwise. I know that I need to ditch the milk, at least for tasting purposes. I'd love to ditch it all together but I'm not there yet. Baby steps.

To that end, I recently ordered a tasting sampler from Angel's Cup. I'll cover my experience in greater detail shortly but suffice it to say it was a good first experience at experiencing coffee purely to discover the tastes.

Ultimately, I hope this blog will both chronicle my adventures as I delve deeper into that rabbit hole and encourage me to keep on keeping on-- I can't quit you, cappuccino, but maybe I can put you down for a little while.