Single Origin Espresso

I've had a few lattes using single origin espressos. Until the last one, they've all been little more than blase. The Costa Rican Helsar de Zarcero from Kaldi's is the exception: Fantastic. I ran out of whole beans for the house and couldn't get my shipment from Northwest in time, so I went down to Kaldi's and picked up some of that unbelievably satisfying Costa Rican. Brought it back immediately and brewed it in the Chemex (with new PRE-FOLDED filters!) and prepared my palate for delicious black brewed brilliance.

I sipped at first, it was hot. The hopes here high. I'll do us all a favor and won't drag this out. It wasn't the greatest. Good enough to finish, but not good enough to buy again. My wife really enjoyed it, but the qualities she picked up were totally lost on me. Supposedly women have an enhanced ability to smell and therefore taste. Maybe this has something to do with it? She detected a "honey-nut cereal" taste that was totally lost on me. My detections were minimal: coffee. No brightness, no citrus, no roast elements; it was blase. Roles reversed on me. This could have been a freak accident, but in the even that it wasn't, this is a crazy phenomenon. A single origin coffee (a top notch propagated and roasted batch at that) that tastes better as espresso? Crazy.

Lord, thanks for new experiences. Keep my head deflated and on straight. Here we go.