Quote:
Originally Posted by Bad Finger
I use four wheels for my comparisons usually that can all be found on google if you are so inclined.
The Tea Tasting Wheel, a Chocolate Tasting wheel, a Coffee tasting wheel, and finally a Cigar Tasting Wheel. Sometimes, when I find a taste that is hard to describe the specific flavor, I take a puff, close my eyes, and imagine it. If that doesn't jog the memory, I tend to use the wheels to help me classify the type of flavor I am tasting.
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Let me give a bit of backstory. My grandfather was a rancher/butcher in the Spokane Valley from 1905 through the 1960's, and when I was old enough I decided to go to Culinary School (after the first dot.com crash of the late 90's). My specialty was as a Saucier (Sauce-eee-ay: The person who makes the sauces in a classic French kitchen) and butcher (still have my great grandfathers scimitars from Solingen, Germany 1890's). We were trained in school to be able to taste a sauce from a tasting spoon and be able to break the taste and aroma down into individual components (similiar to how a dog tastes its food). I seemed to be more adapt to this than most of my peers, and decided to use my palette torwards tasting instead of preparing after I graduated. I started out writing about wines in the Willamette Valley region here in Oregon, doing write ups for the Internationl Pinot Noir Celebration in MacMinnville, Oregon, and a few other wineries that I had friends working at.
For the past three years I've been keeping a journal for my tasting notes, often spanning 5-6 pages each. When I began to run out of space, my wife suggested putting my thoughts online to save paper. A week later when explaining the situation to my buddy who is a cigar reviewer for the Examiner.com, he said he also thought it was a good idea as I have very detailed descriptions of flavors that he thought people would enjoy reading. So in December of 2011, I decided to finally put my money where my mouth is (literally) and start a review site. So far we have had wonderful success I feel, with feedback from every cigar manufacturer we've reviewed so far.
We just hope that the people who like to buy cigars find our write-ups to be honest, detailed, and descriptive. Anything after that is just bonus plume.
