It is depressing...

[liralen]

... to realize that the mere fact that a coffee or tea is in a paper cup is something I can now taste.

I had to dig around in the common kitchen to find a ceramic cup in order to really enjoy the coffee from the k-cup critter installed there.

Yeesh.

Comments

[niherlas.livejournal.com]

And therein lies the Hell of the Connoisseur. No matter if you area of expertise is food, drink, automobiles, audio/video equipment, user interfaces, business processes, literature...

Once your abilities of perception have learned not only to tell the difference between the good and the bad - but between the passable and good, the good and excellent, the excellent and sigularly outstanding - you're forever damned to be acutely aware of anything that is less than outstanding.

This, I think, is the genesis of the phrase, "ignorance is bliss".

[tagryn]

That's why I think having "perfect pitch" would be something of a curse, because 98%-99% of music would sound 'off' in some way. It would pretty much ruin the whole experience of enjoying listening to music.

I remember going to a martial arts demo once, and the instructor trying to impress us neophytes by saying that his sense of taste was so refined that he couldn't eat food anymore that had been prepared using metal cutlery, because he could 'taste only the metal.' Still don't know whether he was BSing or not, but it didn't seem like an enjoyable condition to me.

[(Anonymous)]

We'll leave the commentary of martial arts instructors who try to impress people for another day, but can sympathize to an extent. Certainly, I have to be very desperate to drink anything - beer, soda, juice - from a can. The metals leaves a 'tang' at the back of my teeth that usually sets off a headache.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

*grin*

I had a tai chi... hmmm... example? Instructor, perhaps, in a very loose sense of the term. I remember what really impressed me was when one of our rather... uhm... gung-ho students who was well-versed the hard arts (or one would assume from the black belt he tried wearing to a couple of classes until the class looked at him funny a few too mnay times) tried to surprise our teacher with an attack. The teacher looked quite surprised when the student grabbed him and the *student* suddenly did a backflip and landed badly.

It was that look of utter surprise on both their faces when the teacher's reflexes kicked in without him even knowing it and he deflected the student's energy without being conscious of the act.

My sense of taste can tell when there's direct contact with metal while cooking (not cutting), but I don't always avoid it. Sometimes I invite it with respect to my cast iron skillet. Steaks taste better when seared on cast iron versus aluminum or stickless or glass. Spaghetti sauce is very bad in cast iron. :-) An aluminum wok and a cast iron wok give very different results.

I'm glad it doesn't give me headaches, though I do like pop from bottles better than cans.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

I could believe that.

There was this horrible coffee machine in the lobby of a car dealer who was offering it as a part of their "VIP service". People were flocking to it to watch it grind coffee, pour water on it, and then use a piston to pump the water through the grinds (without EVER letting it steep, not even for a second). What a sad waste of coffee beans... John got a cup of it and he took a sip, got a very funny face, handed it to me, and when I took a sip I looked for a place to spit it out.

Bah.

But all the other people there were so happy with their cuppa hot "coffee".

Part of me, though, is quite content to give up their kind of happiness and sit down to a cuppa fresh roasted, fresh ground, glass brewed, thick mugged, Yemen Mokha Sana'ani, inhale that fragrance and really, thoroughly taste the rich, pungent, earthy body of it with the sweet peach fruity mouth, spicy round aftertaste and sigh with an enjoyment that is close to a meditation. Mmmm...

The hotel room has glass mugs. Yay!