We have a poor vocabulary for flavor distinctions for these things.
It’s generally interesting how poor human language is at describing what we taste and smell. To go into any level of detail you have to resort to analogies (”...pronounced flavors of blackcurrant and plum with some burnt sugar aftertaste...”).
That’s a really interesting point. Personally, I never even taste the things that people make analogies to when drinking wine. An ex-girlfriend of mine would always ask me things like “don’t you taste blackberries? or “Isn’t this buttery?” and would be really disappointed when I said no. I don’t think it’s because I have a bad sense of taste though. In fact, I’ll often be able to tell if I’ve had a specific wine before (if it’s the same vintage) because I recognize the taste signature, and I can sometimes say which other wines I’ve had that it tastes similar to. I just don’t know how to describe the flavors.
It’s generally interesting how poor human language is at describing what we taste and smell. To go into any level of detail you have to resort to analogies (”...pronounced flavors of blackcurrant and plum with some burnt sugar aftertaste...”).
That’s a really interesting point. Personally, I never even taste the things that people make analogies to when drinking wine. An ex-girlfriend of mine would always ask me things like “don’t you taste blackberries? or “Isn’t this buttery?” and would be really disappointed when I said no. I don’t think it’s because I have a bad sense of taste though. In fact, I’ll often be able to tell if I’ve had a specific wine before (if it’s the same vintage) because I recognize the taste signature, and I can sometimes say which other wines I’ve had that it tastes similar to. I just don’t know how to describe the flavors.
Doesn’t seem to be universal for human languages Jahai for example has more words than English.