Taste

A hand pouring water from a gooseneck kettle into a paper filter dripper in a home kitchen
The Ledger, No. 1: A Cup Made by Hand
One number from the economy, one object from the kitchen counter. This time: food inflation and a pour-over. Read more...
A woman listening to music alone with headphones at home
The Pleasure of Being a Beginner in Private
Before preference becomes a performance of knowledge. Read more...
A woman enjoying a ceramic cup alone by her apartment window
Would You Still Like It If Nobody Knew?
On the pleasures we keep and the audiences we carry. Read more...
A woman holding a document folder in a waiting room
Who Can Afford to Wait?
A delay can be inconvenient for one household and unaffordable for another. Whose time disappears inside the request to be patient? Read more...
An Indonesian living room with a television glowing in the evening
The People Who Cannot Turn Off the News
For some people the news is something to leave behind. For others it is the place they still have to live. Read more...
A woman pausing beside a café window with a closed notebook
Knowing More Can Make You Enjoy Less
How to become more perceptive without turning every pleasure into an examination. Read more...
A floral porcelain coffee cup beside a charcoal ceramic cup
Who Taught You That This Was Good Taste?
Before a preference becomes yours, it usually passes through somebody else’s approval. Learning its history can make it more honest. Read more...
The End of History Illusion
The End of History Illusion
Taste · The Curriculum · No. 14 The End of History Illusion Everyone agrees they have changed enormously in the past ten years. Almost nobody expects to change much in... Read more...
The Third Wearing
The Third Wearing
Taste · The Curriculum · No. 13 The Third Wearing Familiarity alone produces liking, with no new information involved. It is the most underrated force in taste, and the reason... Read more...
The Peak and the End
The Peak and the End
Taste · The Curriculum · No. 12 The Peak and the End People do not remember experiences as averages. They remember the most intense moment and the last one, and... Read more...
Twenty Four Jams
Twenty Four Jams
Taste · The Curriculum · No. 11 Twenty Four Jams A tasting table in a California supermarket produced the most quoted finding in retail psychology, then spent twenty years being... Read more...
The Reminiscence Bump
The Reminiscence Bump
Taste · The Curriculum · No. 10 The Reminiscence Bump Ask anyone over forty to recall their life and the answers cluster, hard, around a single decade. The years between... Read more...
Nostalgia Was Once a Disease
Nostalgia Was Once a Disease
Taste · The Curriculum · No. 09 Nostalgia Was Once a Disease For two centuries doctors treated longing for home as a lethal medical condition, complete with symptoms, autopsies and... Read more...
Small Nations Punch Above Their Weight
Small Nations Punch Above Their Weight
Taste · The Curriculum · No. 08 Small Nations Punch Above Their Weight Singapore, Denmark, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Estonia. Countries too small to do everything, forced into choosing, and then... Read more...
Soft Power Is Made of Small Things
Soft Power Is Made of Small Things
Taste · The Curriculum · No. 07 Soft Power Is Made of Small Things Not embassies and campaigns, but convenience stores, passports, uniforms and trains that arrive. How a country... Read more...
A street vendor grilling satay over charcoal
Maillard, the Chemistry of Delicious
One reaction connects the satay grill, the coffee roaster, the bakery, and half the molecules in a perfumer's organ. The Curriculum takes on browning. Read more...
Analytical laboratory instrument
Reading a Perfume Backwards
GC-MS can list every molecule in a perfume by teatime. Why the machine that can copy anything still cannot compose, and what a self-taught nose learned from it anyway. Read more...
A container ship loaded with cargo
Comparative Advantage, or Why the One-Man House Survives
An 1817 idea about English cloth and Portuguese wine explains why a one-man fragrance house in Jakarta can exist at all. Ricardo, read from the bench. Read more...
Shopping bags resting on the floor
Veblen Explains Your Feed
An 1899 economist named the engine behind drops, flexes and quiet luxury before any of them existed. Economics, taught through the wardrobe. Read more...
Stacked coins in focus with a clock behind
Compound Interest, the Quiet Machine
Taste · The Curriculum · No. 02. The one piece of mathematics that decides most lives, taught through a jar and a bottle. Read more...
A starry night sky
Time Runs Faster Upstairs
Taste · The Curriculum · No. 01. A gentle lesson in spacetime, taught through your phone and your feet. Read more...