Sensitive Palates?

[macsauce13]

OK, bare with me here. Lots of you are able to pick out many slight nuances/flavors in a cigar that others can't. Not just the basic creamy, woody, nutty, but real specific things. Would you also say that when you eat food you are really able to pick out the ingredients?

For example, I love food. I mean everybody loves food, but i LOVE it. You can cook me a meal and after a couple bites I can tell you the ingredients you used to cook it. Would that seem to indicate that I will be able to pick out those slight nuances in a cigar as well?

In summary, do you think there is a correlation between a sensitive food palate and a cigar palate? Why do you think you are able to pick things out that others can't?

I hope this is coherent...Been a little heavy into the LIT's tonight, but I think its a legitimate question.

[mosesbotbol]

It's a lot tougher with cigars. In food, if you taste cardamon or basil... Most likely those ingrediants are actually in the food. In drink and smoke; most of the tastes are precieved. In drink and smoke, many tastes are non-food or anything you'd actually eat related. How often does food taste like leather, moss, or hay?

It's putting the perception to words which takes time and experience. I think many go overboard with trying to define something very exact. For cigars, general descriptions of flavor should be enough. "Grassy" is enough; one does not need to say a "Kentucky Blue Grass" if you get my drift.

[forgop]

I wouldn't worry about it. I don't know that I ever really have detected certain flavors like other. Most importantly, it's more about knowing whether how much you enjoyed it or not.

[Salvelinus]

I can cover the broad flavors, woody, earth, etc. but I rarely get the specific flavors. I worry about whether or not the flavor profile is enjoyable for me.

With food I am similar in that I like to try to figure out what spices etc. are there, but as has been said typically they are in fact in there.

[shilala]

I think Moses is right on the money. It's hard to describe some smells, or things I sense. In most cases, it's not even a smell, but seems more like a combination of smell and taste.
I can put words to most things, but with new cigars come new flavors.
I smoked an old SFO Lancero yesterday, and the best I could describe the predominant flavor is "It tasted a lot like pine tree, but right before the pine smell shows up".
Today I can describe it better, because I thought of where I smelled the smell before. It's very earthy and thick like standing in the hemlock trees in a creek bottom around here. You don't get the pine smell, but everything that comes with it.
That's over-descriptive, but it's accuarate.
To describe it, I'd say earthy and musty, but nice.

I get what you're saying about food, too. I can pick out ingredients, and I always know just what to add to fill in the empty spaces in a dish. If you rely on your taste and smell to analyze food, it's kind of like you'll do with a cigar.
With a cigar, there are more ways to experience it. How you take the smoke changes things. You can snork, retrohale, and sniff the smoke from each end of the cigar, and all provide different things.

For me, describing it to someone else is way down on the scale of importance. If I'm smoking with others, I'll make a comment, and if the flavors are special enough, I'll ask them to try the cigar. If I'm by myself, I just get drawn into the cigar and pay attention to it. It allows me to relax and not think about anything else.
If anything, I match the flavors with other cigars so I can tell guys what they'd like based on what they like already. That becomes pretty easy because there aren't a lot of variants.
Personally, I look for flavors that aren't like any other cigars. Those are the ones I talk about most and suggest most so that guys can have new experiences.

I seem to have read this somewhere else.

[macsauce13]

Originally Posted by hockeymaniac

I seem to have read this somewhere else.

Yep, I was really curious about this last night...Like almost obsessing over it and decided to post it on both the boards I trust!

Good to see you over here, BTW!

And thanks for the responses. Shilala its very interesting what you said about relying on taste and smell...That may be something that I have to work on...Looking for explanation outside of the 'norm'.

Mac, don't obsess over it. Just enjoy our cigars. I used to do that also and it took away from just enjoying the cigar. For me the more I focused on trying to figure out what tastes or spices I was tasting the more they eluded me. It will happen if you just let go and enjoy the cigar. Stop thinking about it and you will discover what you are looking for.