Hey everyone, I've been vaping for a while, but just within the last few months have gotten into diy. I read a lot on this sub about everyone's specific flavor notes, etc. My problem is, typically, I just don't seem to taste what everyone else tastes when it comes to juice. Now, I know that taste is subjective, but I also know that most of you here have very well developed palates when it comes to vaping. Which leads me to my question; What did you do to develop your palate, and what advice can you give to those of us trying to develop ours?
EAT & DRINK ALL THE THINGS!
Seriously, I cannot recommend that enough. Explore as many culinary options as you can out in the world. Try the foods and drinks from as many cultures and ethnicities as possible, and just appreciate how things like flavors and textures and temperatures all work together to create unique experiences.
Try to pick out individual elements like spices, fruits, vegetables and other ingredients and how they affect each other. Appreciate things like how an Indian curry can seem to break all the established culinary rules and still work so beautifully. Go even deeper and try cooking some exotic dishes. Get to know profiles that you really love and figure out a way to translate those flavors into a vape recipe.
The best way to train your palate is to challenge it often. And, as far as the "work" of research goes, you could seriously do worse.
How would you recommend someone, like myself, who has a problem with textures overcome it? I can't eat onions, unless sauteed or cooked to no crunch, mushrooms, save psychedelics, and many other foods? I've tried to train myself to get past this through the general consumption of these foods, which is why I can now eat sauteed onions, cooked tomatoes, etc etc, but I can't seem to break this up completely. Do I just keep at it until I acquire the comfortability with textures?
I'm the same way. I switched to a vegan diet about a year and a half ago and really had no choice but to confront my aversion to certain textures and vegetables. After some time, my brain just got used to it and I love most of the things I used to avoid
That's a tough one. I feel for you. For me to simply say; just keep re-introducing those textures that weird you out, feels like I'm advocating torture. Like /u/probywan1337 said; having no choice but to confront your aversion helps, but without that catalyst, how would the desire to overcome even exist?
I have so few limits when it comes to food, that I just sort of beat down the ones I did have, because man, I love to eat. For example, I'm not wild about the taste/texture of raw celery, preferring it cooked-to-death, but my husband considers raw celery an essential ingredient in potato salad. So, I started working in a really fine dice into my recipe, and now I can't live without the stuff. It's even become one of the last things I add to a vegetable soup, because I prefer it more al dente now.
I've never been a big fan of anise, but Pho just ain't Pho without it, and now that Italian Pizzelle mix that /u/OctaVariuM8 magic-ed up is in my juice rotation forever.
I guess one way is to work those offenders into a dish you really enjoy, but, not at the expense of your enjoyment of it, I'd say. Some aversions are insurmountable. Like those tapioca balls in Boba tea. Gross.
Damn... I knew I would have to, but its so hard to get myself to add these things to the food I cook. My gf likes almost every food I despise, so I guess I'll have to get her to help make me buy these things and add them to my dishes. Hopefully it won't be too much of a pain in the ass. With that being said, I guess I'll let her add the uncooked onion garnish to my plate for dinner tonight that she wasn't going to bc of my texture weirdness. Thanks a ton guys!
>I also know that most of you here have very well developed palates
Have they?
It's funny, I look at the majority of the flavour on here and all I see is sickly sweet flavours with strawberries, doughnuts and cream. Although I'm sure that some of them are lovely, I don't think that's the sign of a sophisticated pallet. To me they seem like flavours that a breakfast cereal/sweet manufacturer would make, and they try to appeal to people with an underdeveloped pallet.
Don't undersell yourself. What one person thinks is crap might be wonderful to you. Everyone's pallet is different, and while you may not pick up on some flavours, you might pick up on others.
Personally I think that DIY is fun, but when there are companies out there who have spent significant money making sure their blend is correct, I think it's a bit hit and miss to expect to find a great recipe on a sub like this. You're probably better off buying a good premixed.
It would be great to see more recipes like coffee, tea, citrus, tobacco and liquorice here, but I can't see that happening.
I love a fruity, milky face-fuck cereal vape just as much as the next overgrown child, but I tend to put the sweet stuff on the shelf in favor of coffees, teas and florals when I'm having, say, adult beverages. But those flavors are not only notoriously difficult to wrangle, they lack the broad appeal that a strawberry milk or a doughnut recipe can garner. Less polarizing flavors = more upvotes. I think as more people get into DIY, the spectrum will broaden, but, until then, a lot of us are reluctant to share those more unusual/savory recipes, fearing the feedback.
The "everyone's pallet is different" problem takes on a rather extreme angle when you factor ethnicities. Both you and the dish.
If you are of European ancestry the best Chinese food in the world will be found in San Francisco. If you are Asian you may disagree. The San Francisco Bay Area is just full of amazing food from all over the world... Because it has all been rebalanced for European pallets. Having grown up there I thought I had a well developed pallet for all manner of foreign foods, right up until I tried truly foreign food.
I've often wondered if this is problematic for eJuice. Are there any top mixers here that grew up on traditional Asian cuisine? Hell, in this whole sub do we have any black folks? Now that I've come to think of it, all the mixers I can name are white guys. I wonder if other ethnicities are self-selecting away from our shenanigans because everything we post tastes bad to them.
Now I'm hungry for chicken vindaloo, but only the kind I get at this one place that knows how to do it for white folk.
Lol I somehow made it to the end of this racist comment. What exactly do Asian and black people have to do with anything. I'm assuming you meant they must eat different food because they are not 'white', I'm guessing they're all from Asia and Africa as well since you know, they look different and can't possibly be just like you
Looks like you aren't aware, so I guess someone has to tell you: different cultures develop vastly different cooking and eating styles. Commenting on cultural differences doesn't make a person racist. In fact, your comment is far more ignorant than /u/Discchord's.
Go order local Chinese takeout, then go eat in China. The food will be almost entirely different - we have adapted Chinese food to fit American (predominantly European-descended) culinary preferences.
The way I did it many years ago (not for vaping, this was wine related): I bought a lot of different wines from different grapes, regions and countries.
Before tasting a wine, I read up on the tasting notes. Then, while tasting, I tried to find the flavours that were supposed to be in this wine. In the beginning I couldn't find any tastes that were described. For me it was just good or not good. But I wrote down what I was thinking.
After some time I started to discover certain tastes: buttery, wood, fruity. And sometimes this didn't correspond to what was described on the internet. But I still wrote down what I was tasting.
Then I started finding the more exact flavors: oak, vanilla, red fruit, which grapes were used and so on. This process however took years.
So back to vaping. As you could read above, developing taste takes time.So buy several ejuices with different tastes but stay away from the complex ones in the beginning (multiple flavours in one juice). Start with single flavour juices. Get used to the taste of these flavours. Try recognizing them by smell and by taste. Taste the vape when you inhale and when you exhale.
Soon you'll be able to recognize them without knowing exactly what you're vaping. Then you can start with the more complex juices (well, you can vape them before this off course, but recognizing them will take time). And chances are that you'll never get the best palate but there will come a time that you can at least recognize custards, fruits, mints and so on.
So don't let the beginning bring you down. This is completely normal. Developing something takes time and practise. No shortcuts unfortunately.
It's not so much training your palate but training your brain to recognize certain profiles and notes in flavors and foods. Most of the what you taste comes through your nose, and in ejuice almost all of it, so if you're one with bad sinuses or a stuffy nose all the time this might be very difficult for you. Try singeling out flavors every time you eat or taste something. This is a good way to learn how to identify flavors.
How much coffee do you drink in a day? Also how long since your last cigarette?
It's been about two years since my last cigarette, and I don't really drink coffee. I actually JUST started drinking a cup or two of decaf coffee a week, but nothing in excess.
Try new foods. Chew slowly. Move it around. Savor it. Remember it. Eat less sweet things. Cook more. Eat a little less salt. Drink Distilled. Blow your nose.
You grow new taste buds roughly every 14 days, perception of taste changes with this. Perception of taste also changes depending on what you've recently eaten/drank(brush&floss yo mouf) & sobriety/drugs can also affect it.
I'm just like you man, it's a really rare for me to find a recipe that actually tastes like the creator intends it, mostly it's bland and I can't get a single defined flavor.
Maybe my palette is sensetive and I'm just overloading my palette by doing subohm, as I remember being able to taste things clearly from time to time using a nautilus a year back, it was also pretty rare but when it happened it was amazing. Haven't been able to replicate it though. :/