My Changing Palate

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A few days ago my daughter had a bad night. I decided to make some hot chocolate to cheer her up.

So, I ran to the store and bought some Swiss Miss in a bucket. I boiled the water, I measured the spoons, and served up the hot chocolate to my kids. My children enjoyed it, although I took one sip and thought, "Holy crap! That is too sweet!"

I haven't had hot chocolate in about three years. I do drink my coffee in the morning, though. I just couldn't stomach the sweetness of the drink. It was so....just sugar water.

Before I left the church, I remember always feeling that the standard scoop sizes for hot chocolate were pretty weak, so I would double and do heaping spoons to sweeten the drink. Nothing was better than a cup of hot cocoa in the winter, after all!

When I first started drinking coffee, I realized I was drinking it and treating it like hot chocolate. I added a ton of sugar and added a chocolate creamer. After a while, I started to enjoy the bitter twinge to it and started adding less sugar. Eventually, I moved from chocolate creamer to a vanilla creamer. Now I'm down to three cubes and one small serving of creamer.

I'm either getting older, or my palate has changed when I replaced hot chocolate with coffee....

[trophywife26.2]

Sweets are often too sweet for me now too! I used to have dessert every night after I put the kids to bed. Now I have a glass of wine if I am having a treat or sometimes dark chocolate. My brain hasn't caught up with it yet though because I often think a doughnut or whatever sounds good, but after I eat it I feel a bit ill.

[Just This Guy]

I don't know how much me trying to eat a better diet in general, leaving the church, or just getting older but it is the same for me.

Often at night, instead of desert, I want cheese and crackers.

[alas]

Now, I was blaming those same changes on being diabetic and cutting way back on sugar. We switched away from desert to fruit or nothing. Now, most desert is gaggy sweet. Standard processed food is too sweet, such as canned applesauce and even catsup. (I have been having home canned with no added sugar. Even the commercially canned a.s. with no added sugar has to come up to government standard sweetness, so they use very sweet apples, instead of my Granny Smith.) I have started with coffee for ADD, but still don't like the bitter taste, so I put half and half into it, so that I have a little coffee with my cream and artificial sweetener. So, I don't think it was coffee that caused the changes for me, because coffee is real recent and I have objected to too much sweet for a lot longer than having coffee. But things like in a restaurant, if they bring me a regular Coke instead of diet, I can usually tell because it is too sweet and leaves my mouth sticky. But Swiss Miss is sweet Kid food. Silly rabbit, Swiss Miss if for kids

[Silver Girl]

When I first started drinking coffee (in my late teens, long before joining the church), I dressed it up with cream and sugar. After a while, I realized I was adding more and more sugar & was drinking it for the sweetness. Since some of my relatives had been diabetic, that worried me, so I completely stopped putting sugar in coffee at that point - I didn't even try to cut back gradually. My father also used sugar & when he noticed I'd stopped, he asked about it. I told him I'd gradually gone from 1/2 teaspoon, to a whole teaspoon, and then 1-1/2 teaspoon, etc., and why I had decided to stop. To my amazement, he immediately stopped putting sugar in his coffee! He later became diabetic, and I was glad he had at least cut out that habit.

But - for a long while, I still used powdered creamer. If you read the ingredients - powdered creamer still has a lot of sugar. Three grams of sugar equals one teaspoon - check out the number of grams in a canned soft drink - about the same as 13 spoons of sugar in some brands. So I stopped using creamer or cream & have had black coffee for many years now (except while I did time in the church).

As the OP mentioned - some types of hot chocolate are so sweet they almost gag me. This surprises me, because (confession time) - I have a terrible sweet tooth. I can knock off a bag of Dove chocolates in two days if I don't pay attention. I'm glad I got out of the habit of putting sugar in my coffee (and I usually avoid the sugared lattes, etc - they're like milkshakes), because coffee is again a daily habit for me & I'd need a whole new wardrobe. Not that I dislike shopping...

[2bizE]

Over 25 years, I would taste sauerkraut every few years. Never liked it. Then last year my wife and I took a trip through the Bavarian town of Leavenworth Washington. I tried some sauerkraut with my bratwurst...delicious. now in love it....Maybe a beer or two are in my future.

[Silver Girl]

Over 25 years, I would taste sauerkraut every few years. Never liked it. Then last year my wife and I took a trip through the Bavarian town of Leavenworth Washington. I tried some sauerkraut with my bratwurst...delicious. now in love it....Maybe a beer or two are in my future.

Here's a challenge for you - we Germans eat sauerkraut on New Year's Day (for luck) - I grew up with that tradition and I love it. If you want to do it the authentic way, make it with pork spare ribs, mashed potatoes and fluffy dumplings. Don't judge - it's delicious (there's something very comforting about the taste of sauerkraut and mashed potatoes).

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Over 25 years, I would taste sauerkraut every few years. Never liked it. Then last year my wife and I took a trip through the Bavarian town of Leavenworth Washington. I tried some sauerkraut with my bratwurst...delicious. now in love it....Maybe a beer or two are in my future.

Side note, I love Leavenworth. It's about two or three hours from me.

[Just This Guy]

I reticently discovered a new way to make cocoa that people here may be interested in. Instead of using hot water to mix you cocoa, use black coffee. The sweetness of the cocoa cancels out the bitterness of the coffee. The end result is something that tastes like a dark chocolate cocoa.

[wtfluff]

I'll join in with you Nommies and agree that my palate has changed in my apostate ways, in that I have learned to like / enjoy more and more bitter drinks, but unfortunately, I have NOT lost my "sweet tooth". Bring on the death by chocolate!

I reticently discovered a new way to make cocoa that people here may be interested in. Instead of using hot water to mix you cocoa, use black coffee. The sweetness of the cocoa cancels out the bitterness of the coffee. The end result is something that tastes like a dark chocolate cocoa.

This^^ Is how I "learned" to drink coffee.

[Korihor]

I'm late joining this thread.
My palate is changing too, somewhat by force. I actually like the flavor of coffee now as well as beer, but I can't go over board.

I can't believe how sweet some things are after finishing a coffee/beer.

[Enoch Witty]

I developed a taste for beer during college, but only tried coffee twice and hated it. Fifteen years after those two attempts, I was at Trader Joe's the other day and thought, "Hell yeah, I'm going to sample the coffee." IPAs are my favorite kind of beer, so I have a healthy appreciation for bitter flavors. Part of the reason I'm interested in coffee is because of the health benefits of drinking it black, so that's how I sampled it.

Oh my gosh, I hated it. I finished the whole thing, but just that one little sample cup made me jittery and sick to my stomach, and I couldn't get the taste out of my mouth with any food or drink.

That said, I am familiar with the glory of acquired tastes, so I might give it another shot with a different bean. However, I'm not spending a penny on coffee until I actually like it.

[20/20hind]

Mine has changed to. Lost 50 pounds since leaving the church! I run, weight train,and im in the best shape of my life. All of this while breaking the word of wisdom. Coffee and beer drinking. That run and not be weary thing is crap.

[Dravin]

I'm late joining this thread.

I can't believe how sweet some things are after finishing a coffee/beer.

Have you reached the point where beer tastes sweet? Some are most definitely sweet but even a lot of drier beers have a sweetness to them, sorta like the sweetness of milk.

[document]

I reticently discovered a new way to make cocoa that people here may be interested in. Instead of using hot water to mix you cocoa, use black coffee. The sweetness of the cocoa cancels out the bitterness of the coffee. The end result is something that tastes like a dark chocolate cocoa.

Pardon my ignorance, isn't that mocha?

[Just This Guy]

Possible. Mocha's normally taste a lot more coffee to me, but I am no expert.

[Korihor]

I'm late joining this thread.

I can't believe how sweet some things are after finishing a coffee/beer.

Have you reached the point where beer tastes sweet? Some are most definitely sweet but even a lot of drier beers have a sweetness to them, sorta like the sweetness of milk.

Beer is definitely not sweet. But Mike's hard lemonade is very very sweet now.

Ciders are sweet, but not like a soda. I just tell cider is sweeter than beer but it doesn't knock my socks off like sprite.

[Dravin]

Beer is definitely not sweet.

I think the key is if you've accepted and enjoy the bitterness. Something like an IPA has a lot of malt (which gives sweetness) to balance out all the hops, if the hops aren't shocking your pallet then you can tend to notice the sweetness in them* and some beers like Wee Heavies/Scotch Ales are just straight up sweet by beer standards (a fair number of stouts are chock full of sweetness as well but hops and coffee/chocolate notes tend to balance it out).

That said, I've never encountered a beer that approaches soda like levels of sweetness.... that's not to say I've never encountered a beer loaded with sugar, it's just usually balanced against something.

*The same principle also applies to something like a Bud Light or a Pilsner Urquell, you just have a lower intensity of both sweetness and hops at play.

But Mike's hard lemonade is very very sweet now.

Yeah, your alcopops are pretty sweet.

Ciders are sweet, but not like a soda. I just tell cider is sweeter than beer but it doesn't knock my socks off like sprite.

Cider can be sweet and it can be dry (it's like wine in that respect). If you want to take a crack at a dry cider Angry Orchard does makes Stone Dry Cider that is nice and dry and Crispin' Browns Lane is also a drier offering. They both use cider apples, the latter exclusively to my understanding, so they get a nice tannic bite that you don't find in your standard Angry Orchard Crisp Apple.

Edit:

P.S. - I'm not trying to tell you that you perceive beer as sweet, tastes are individual and there are many beers, most beers even, that I wouldn't describe as sweet unless I was in dissection mode because it's a background thing rather than a foreground thing. I'm just a little hungry for beer talk and I'm afraid it's manifested itself in this post.

[Enoch Witty]

I think the key is if you've accepted and enjoy the bitterness. Something like an IPA has a lot of malt (which gives sweetness) to balance out all the hops, if the hops aren't shocking your pallet then you can tend to notice the sweetness in them* and some beers like Wee Heavies/Scotch Ales are just straight up sweet by beer standards (a fair number of stouts are chock full of sweetness as well but hops and coffee/chocolate notes tend to balance it out).

I've been drinking exclusively IPAs for a few years now, and this is how I experience them. I tried an old college favorite of mine the other day, a New Belgian Fat Tire Amber Ale, and I couldn't believe how sweet but almost bland it tasted. Give me IPAs any day.