If you've ever tasted a coffee and thought "I genuinely can't tell what's different about this one," you're not bad at tasting — you're probably just sipping too fast.

Here's the fix that changed everything for me: slurp it.

It looks ridiculous. It sounds worse. But pulling the coffee across your tongue with air aerosolizes it and blasts it across way more of your palate and olfactory receptors than a normal sip ever will. Professional cuppers slurp for a reason — it's not a quirk, it's a technique.

A few other things that instantly improve your ability to pick out flavor:

• Taste it at multiple temperatures. Coffee tastes different hot, warm, and cool — the sweetness and acidity show up more clearly as it cools. Don't judge a coffee off one sip at scalding temp.

• Compare, don't isolate. Tasting one coffee alone makes subtlety nearly invisible. Put two different coffees side by side and the differences jump out immediately, even for total beginners.

• Name the ballpark before the specific. Don't force yourself to say "blueberry" — start with "fruity vs. nutty vs. chocolatey." The specific notes get easier to name once you've nailed the category.

Try the slurp on your next cup. It feels silly for about four seconds and then it just becomes how you taste coffee.