system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: I think coffee tasting notes are completely made up

Let me first say, I don't drink coffee. I've drunk coffee at different points in my life. I just don't now because I find the level of caffeine too high. So, these days I drink tea, lemonade, or just plain water. But I've drunk different coffees and I accept that there are different tastes to the different roasts, and I sort of agree that there's some taste difference from the origin. That is to say, I am completely in agreement that some coffee is more acidic, or more bitter.

But what I object to are "tasting notes" that coffee critics use to describe coffee. A few months ago I watched a YouTube video where a coffee reviewer (who I guess was supposed to be "legit"? He was hired by some clickbaity website like Vox or something) drank some coffee, and he literally gagged on it and said, "Blueberries! It's just... blueberries! Oh my god, get that away from me. It's sickeningly sweet. It's literally drinking fruit juice."

To which I can only say, "You have never drunk fruit juice if you think that is what fruit juice is." Because I have never, ever, ever mistaken coffee for any kind of fruit juice, even for the briefest moment.

It just makes no sense to me that people will drink coffee and say, "Tasting notes of chocolate, peaches, cinnamon, and nutmeg" because I will buy that same coffee and drink it and say, "It is... coffee."

Critics say, "This is a fruit-forward coffee, full mouth feel. Very pleasant and naturally creamy, though there's a muddy aftertaste with notes of burnt caramel" and I'll say, "It is... coffee."

Tasting notes are \*bizarrely\* specific sometimes, like I once met a critic who told me a coffee had tasting notes of, "The first grapes of a winter season, the sort that makes a fine Riesling" and I'm like... that has to be made up. There is literally no possible way that the coffee has that taste in it, nor that anybody could so accurately identify the taste of \*that specific\* grape mixed in with the rest of the flavor of coffee.

That said, my wife routinely reads the tasting notes on the packages of coffee we buy and she agrees that they are correct. She'll say, "Oh yes, I taste the peaches distinctly. Yes, that's actually a very good description." And I don't know if this is just the power of suggestion, but she has a very discriminating sense of taste, so I'm at least open to the possibility that there's some kind or peach flavor isomer in there somewhere.

So... what's the argument that coffee tastes like apricots, pineapple, tumeric, or other things that I think literally (chemically) are not in coffee?

EDIT:  

I guess I'm asking at least partially, does any PROOF exist that these "experts" are actually able to identify these flavors? Can chemical flavor trackers of apricots be found in coffee? This should be empirically testable, but as far as I know, no such evidence has ever actually been collected. Similarly, do these experts show inter-rater reliability in a double-blind taste test? That is to say, if you give the same coffee to two testers, do they both say, "Yes, apricots"? Again, this should be empirically testable without a lot of difficulty.

It seems to me like a lot of people are saying, "Well, they said they tasted it. So, it's there!" but I'm saying, no its fictional. They're making it up to make themselves sound smart, or sell a product by making it sound fancy, or something. I do not believe that their ability to taste is actually this super-refined.
gpt
Tasting notes in things like coffee, wine, whiskey, etc. are completely dependent on getting past the “base” taste of the drink. Since you aren’t accustomed to drinking coffee, all you taste is “coffee”. After you drink it long enough, you’ll be able to distinguish between light and dark roasts, and type of beans, and eventually will be able to pick up on the subtler flavors.