This upcoming book took six years of mostly full time effort to write and edit.It was transformative for me, and I hope the information will be for you as well. Here are some of my major takeaways about our amazing chemical senses and the ways they are processed in the brain.
It’s obvious that we human beings are all pretty different from one another—in appearance, experience, attitude, gender, and countless other attributes. Each of us has things that come effortlessly and others at which we struggle. It goes without saying that these differences affect our abilities as tasters. But how, exactly?
It’s obvious that we human beings are all pretty different from one another—in appearance, experience, attitude, gender, and countless other attributes. Each of us has things that come effortlessly and others at which we struggle. It goes without saying that these differences affect our abilities as tasters. But how, exactly?
It’s obvious that we human beings are all pretty different from one another—in appearance, experience, attitude, gender, and countless other attributes. Each of us has things that come effortlessly and others at which we struggle. It goes without saying that these differences affect our abilities as tasters. But how, exactly?
It’s obvious that we human beings are all pretty different from one another—in appearance, experience, attitude, gender, and countless other attributes. Each of us has things that come effortlessly and others at which we struggle. It goes without saying that these differences affect our abilities as tasters. But how, exactly?
It’s obvious that we human beings are all pretty different from one another—in appearance, experience, attitude, gender, and countless other attributes. Each of us has things that come effortlessly and others at which we struggle. It goes without saying that these differences affect our abilities as tasters. But how, exactly?
Sunrise in Porto, the view from our hotel window. Situated along the Douro River estuary in northern Portugal, beautiful Porto is one of the oldest European centers. Port wine, one of Portugal’s most famous exports, is named after the city as its metropolitan area is the heart of the packaging, transport, and export of this world-famous fortified wine. Recently my wife Nancy and I had the occasion to visit lovely Portugal and spend a little time enjoying its scenic and gustatorial delights.
A universal truth that keeps popping up in my search of the literature is that nothing is as simple as it seems. A sniff seems just a simple movement of air, but it’s actually way more than that: it’s a psychomotor event. One crucial function is to synchronize the olfactory receptor cells with the olfactory bulb and other smell-related brain regions, especially the primary olfactory processing center, the piriform cortex. This allows different regions to communicate with each other…
As brewers and beer enthusiasts we fuss over every little thing, whether it’s the best ingredients or process, classic or inventive recipes, or ratings, reviews and the latest hop-du-jour. But how much attention do we pay to how fresh our beer is? Do we recognize the complex, telltale signs when a beer is past its prime?
Beer is more complex than any other beverage known. No one’s keeping the master list of odor chemicals, but it’s huge. Hops alone contain more than 1000 terpenoids with citrus, floral and other aromas, with many other chemicals, too. In malt, Maillard and other browning processes create hundreds more. Fermentation and subsequent maturation creates a third enormous family of aromas, yet there are more. Add them all up and you get far in excess of the widely quoted number of 600–1000 odor chemicals in wine.