SOS taste recalibration?

Do you make a conscious or unconscious taste adjustment when you drink single origin shots? I think I do. For instance, if I'm pulling shots with a Harrar that has great blueberries, I tend to be so psyched about tasting the blueberries that I ignore other things that may be taste flaws. It might be sour, or need more body, but I get a tunnel vision effect, and I just concentrate on the flavor that I'm seeking. The shot will be exciting for me, but maybe other folks, being more objective, would find it flawed.

It's not just blueberries, of course. The same thing can happen when I taste great orange-fruity flavors in a Rwandan or even just a classic earthy Sumatra.

Tonight I chatted on the phone with Kevin C about this issue. He talked how the origin flavors could come through with much greater clarity than they could in a blend. As he said this, I flashed on how an SOS was like an expert soloist performing on their instrument; you could hear every nuance of style and interpretation. An espresso blend, on the other hand, was like a chamber group, with harmony and complexity being more important than solo virtuosity.

One of my goals as a barista, although I'm only an amateur, is to make single origin shots joyously expressive of their uniqueness, while remaining finely balanced. The Harrar shot that Kevin prepared last week did this pretty darn well. On a forty-year-old espresso machine!