#1004 Bitter Taste

There’s an experience that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. It’s the experience of drinking coffee. I am coffee taste challenged. I envy the folks who can take a sip of coffee and go on and on about its delicate flavor nuances—its fruity undertones, its great finish.
All I get is a hot mass of bitter liquid.
It’s funny. I’m one of those people who has a similar grasp of the nuances of hot chili peppers. I can easily tell the difference between a serrano, a jalapeño, and a habanero. I get right past the hot.
But with coffee I could do a taste test between organic Ethiopian yergecheffe and Maxwell House crystals and be hard put to tell the difference.
I confess. I don’t drink coffee for the flavor. I do like the smell, but to me coffee is just a hot liquid delivery vehicle for caffeine. More socially acceptable than popping NoDoz. Surprisingly, having an intimate conversation in a coffee bar over a couple of white pills is not very stimulating.
Another confession. Sorry coffee snobs, at home I brew Folgers. And you might want to hold your hands over your ears if they’re not too busy holding your turned-up nose. I not only drink Folgers, I brew a pot one day and reheat the leftover liquid on the next day.
I figure, that’s why there’s a button on my microwave that says coffee.
In other respects, my taste buds seem to work quite well. The other day I tried an energy drink for the first time. What a weird wired roiling rush sensation. Not just in my head, but in my stomach.
And the taste. It was as if they had taken tried and tested tidbits of taste and mixed them together hoping for success. Like what we used to call a “suicide” as kids when we had the soda jerk mix all the flavors.
The taste was like cream soda mixed with something citrus-y. At first I thought it was Squirt but then I figured it out. Lemon Snapple Tea.
Dang. Tea leaves a bitter taste in my mouth too.
America, ya gotta love it.