If I drip a little honey on the side of the bottle as I’m making a cup of tea, I’m liable to wipe it with my finger and taste it.
It makes the first half of the teacup taste bitter.
Of course, the tea doesn’t get any more bitter, but my perception of it changes from my experience of the purely sweet honey.
Just a taste of honey makes the tea bitter.
Before I learned this phenomenon with my tea, my impulse was to think I had poured incorrectly, and add more honey. But that’s not a good solution – over-sweetened tea isn’t good or good for you in the long run.
The best solutions are either to (1) not taste the honey or (2) know it’s going to happen, and either make expectation adjustments or wait before tasting.
The same thing is going to happen when you hear remarkable, high-level music. If I hear New York Voices give a concert, chances are that the next vocal jazz group I hear is not going to sound as sweet, because my aural “taste buds” have been affected by the amazing sounds I just heard. Same if I attend a Oakwood Aeolians concert, or a Stellenbosch University Choir performance.
It takes vigilance and-more importantly-awareness to not misjudge excellent music when you’ve just heard remarkable music. Just like the vigilance and awareness it takes to not think your tea is bitter when you’ve just had a spoon of honey.