No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory—this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. —Swann’s Way, Marcel Proust
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Marcel Proust detachedly agreeing to tea on a cold day, only to be walloped by the unexpected, long-forgotten and wonderfully visceral memory of visiting his aunt’s bedroom as a boy and being treated to a bite of petite madeleine, gently dipped in her cup of lime-blossom tisane, is surely the most famous example of the brain’s fascinating and unreliable reactions to what’s in our mouths or under our noses.
Know any wine sellers? Ask them about the clients who order a case of the beautiful wine they enjoyed while dining alfresco on vacation, only to feel certain, drinking it later in their kitchens, that it isn’t the same wine. Happens all the time.
Our five senses are critical to experiencing coffee, and yet they are fickle, unreliable—and in constant flux. In our third Summer Sensory Series event at our Providence office, we’ll explore the five senses, how our brains make sense of them and how to train them for when we need them most.
Please rsvp to team.providence@nkg.coffee—and join us!
Wednesday, Aug. 1
5–7 p.m.
3 Steeple Street, Suite 301, ProvidenceThis is a free event, open to coffee professionals and our wider community!
