Every single time you eat/drink/vape something analyse the shit out of it.

Usually when doing tastings you split the 'experience' into four things - flavour, aroma, mouthfeel, appearance.

• Flavour - what is actually sensed on the tongue - sweet, sour, salt, bitter, savoury.
• Aroma - all the other components of the way something tastes - fruity, herbal etc. Most of what we refer to as 'taste' is actually aroma.
• Mouthfeel - as it sounds - smooth, rough, sparkling, dry/astringent etc
• Appearance - not so important in juice but worth taking note of in other things.

Give yourself little experiments - compare foods that are different but similar eg orange, mandarin, tangerine. Then compare the same thing but different varieties, cooks/chefs, manufacturers etc.

When tasting see if it brings back any memories and sort of 'explore' those memories to cement them in your mind.

Do a little research into the science-y side of things - how your sense of smell and taste work, how things like temperature, appearance and even psychology can effect flavour. Look into how different chemical components give different flavours, aromas and mouthfeels.

Be aware of palate fatigue (vapers tongue) and how to use things like smelling coffee, drinking water or smelling the back of your hand to help combat it.

Try eating/drinking/vaping different ways to see how flavours and aroma differ. A simple one is to take a hit inhaling and exhaling through your mouth. Try it again but this time exhale through your nose. Try taking a sip of beer, let it sit in your mouth for while, swish it round, note how it changes as it warms up and looses carbonation.

Practice all the time, it's easy to become complacent and stop really thinking about what you're tasting. Use it or lose it.

Look into expanding out into other things besides juice - see if there's any clubs/groups in your area for food, whiskey, beer or wine tasting. It's a lot easier to sit down and pick apart something when you've got someone to guide you and bounce ideas off.

Most importantly - take notes whenever possible. At first it seems futile as you'll usually be writing things pretty nondescript, but as your palate and related vocabulary starts to open up those notes will be invaluable.

start ordering flavors and make 10ml single-flavor test batches (to your preferred Nic strength and VG/PG ratio) for each flavor you get. take notes and find flavors you think would be similar to that one, then make an equivalent test batch and compare.

it's a bunch of trial and error but that's a good practice to get into for any flavor you order, that way you know how it will play with other flavors in mixes and you'll naturally be able to recognize flavors better in other peoples juice.

I noticed that the first drag of the day -usually in the morning, is often more potent flavor-wise. I'm definitely more able to break down the different notes at this moment but it's a one shot a day thing.