After having A-Fib twice now (4 decades apart) - the MD's say to cut back on daily coffee intake. (sigh) .... fine. Down to one cup .
Very clearly taken from this old drawing, but slightly modified for modesty: How the Starbucks Siren Became Less Naughty See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melusine
A dash of salt in coffee tends to fight coffee bitterness. This is the method to handle constantly heated coffee at diners. JeffD
I'm a properly initiated USN Chief, and while I concur that there is a time and a place for a little pinch of sea salt, some freshly whipped real cream from a real bovine, and perhaps a dash of sugar, the whole "getting rid of the bitter" is sorta anti-coffee if you think about it. We see the same thing in the craft beer market with people putting all kinds of weird things into their brews to make them taste a little less like beer. I do however have a soft spot in my heart for a Sam Adams Cherry Wheat. I sort of like my coffee uncomplicated. I was on the pods as recently as just a few months ago, but the current economy cured me from that - perhaps forever. Sooner or later? You always go back to basics.
I've never understood why so many people like the taste of bitter foods like beer and coffee. How does our sense of taste work? - InformedHealth.org - NCBI Bookshelf "Taste was a sense that aided us in testing the food we were consuming. It was therefore a matter of survival. A bitter or sour taste was an indication of poisonous inedible plants or of rotting protein-rich food." In other words, a bitter taste is an indication that you shouldn't be consuming something. That's why it's disgusting tasting - so you won't consume it. So why do people like it? Or, maybe, HOW do people like it, when our biology says we shouldn't (and I don't - I won't eat anything bitter). I've never understood that.
As much as I love drinking coffee, mostly black but sometimes espresso milk drinks (never sweetened), I don't like bitter, astringent, ashy, burnt flavor coffee. Those are defects in a cup I strive not to brew from beans I roast. That is one of the reasons I never roast my beans dark. For me, a perfect cup should be sweet, smooth, fruity, floral, and a very complex melange of pleasant flavors yet well balanced. But with so many variables affecting the resulting cup characteristics, it is a challenge to find that perfect cup I enjoy most.
While commonly associated with toxic things, it isn't an inherent indicator of such. Used in moderation, it can be desirable, including to balance out some other tastes. And like all tastes, not everyone perceives it the same. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taste#Bitterness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bittering_agent
Hops grow wild around here; we’ll pick the buds if we come across them. Nice addition to a cup of tea.
Came across an article about poke weed and it being a traditional dish in the South. The plant is literally poisonous, and requires multiple boilings to remove the toxins. It is culturally important to some people now, but their ancestors likely started eating it because it was that or starve. Which is likely the why of many foods we make and eat. I don't think somebody set out to make moldy or insect invested cheese on purpose, for example. Sourness is a sign of food going bad, but it is also a result of fermentation. Which was a very important method of preserving food for much of human history. Spoilage organisms themselves are generally harmless to ingest; some are even beneficial. The acidic environments they produce are inhospitable to most food pathogens. If you are down to just old lunch meat in the fridge, eat the slimy one. The other is more likely to have Listeria. Hops was originally added to beer because of the belief it was a preservative; likely because of its taste. By the time they figured out it wasn't, everybody was use to the flavor, and didn't like beer without it.
"If you are down to just old lunch meat in the fridge, eat the slimy one." I did not know that. Even so, my choice would be neither.
Pokeweed is widely distributed and well equipped against diseases and herbivory. Which means "do not eat" unless detoxifying as described above. Picture of berries (also poisonous):
^ Have some in by back yard right now. You have to be sorta careful when cutting it back since the plant juice can be an irritant. The plant itself has been described as nutritious, but I've never been tempted by a 'poke salat' myself.
Saponins (a group of chemicals) are no joke. This is below the poison-ivy class, but if I were clearing (poke) brush I might wear cheap polyethylene gloves over general-use yard-work gloves. For poison ivy, consider a polyethylene bunny suit . For debris burning after clearing all such, do not stand where smoke goes. Superpowers here belong to Machineel tree, it gets (3 eeks) at minimum. Not found north of mid Florida I think. Will kill you today not tomorrow. The problem with poke is those berries look kinda nice, which is why I posted that picture. == At lot of plants 'do saponins' at low levels, including some normal food plants (half an eek, at most). They oppose bacterial and fungal plant diseases pretty well. Some plant genetic engineers aspire to add such genes to other crops (for disease control) but I think that may not be a great idea.
