Are there five basic tastes?

At this point, I can tell you only two things definitively about flavor and the pursuit of unwinding exactly what it is and how we can all appreciate it more. Thing one: Flavor is complex. And thing 2: I’m going to keep asking questions of the people who inhabit the world of flavor for a long time to come.

Which is my way of saying… season 1 has come to an end. BUT there will be a Season 2 of fever4flavor. I can’t tell you exactly when that will be or who will be on it, but I do hope to continue talking to the kinds of people you’ve heard from here: chefs, flavorists, and other passionate experts. And I hope that season 2 can be 20 episodes, or 30, or even more.

So check back in this space in the coming months for more news and an update. I can’t thank you enough for tuning in! As always, if you have any ideas for who I should be talking to, and fun foods or amazing recipes I should try, or anything at all related to flavor, or even to just say hello… you can drop me a line at podcast@fever4flavor.com.

Until next time! This is Evan Young, this is fever4flavor, and I’ll be seeing you in Season 2.

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Produced by Studio D Podcast Production.

You’ll hear me reference my travels quite a bit on this podcast. I always feel a little bit strange talking about the places I’ve been; I don’t want to sound like some kind of elitist, jet-setting, wealthy 1% kind of person who spends his weekends in Bali. I’m not that.

But I did have the luck in my 20’s—which was a couple of decades ago for me—of falling backwards into an opportunity to live in Bangkok for a few years. As the travel hub in southeast Asia, I also had the luck, or the guts maybe, of traveling extensively throughout the region. On a backpacker’s budget, I got to sip coffee in Laos, eat banh mi in Vietnam, try adobo in the Philippines. As I “grew up” and came back stateside, I also ended up working a job that sent me to Europe a few times a year. Again, lucky me.

But I’ll say this: what I took away from these travels was an unabashed love for all kinds of non-American cuisines, and in particular, the stuff you just don’t see all that often here in the US. For example: Burmese food. When I came across a cafe restaurant off of Rittenhouse Square called PS & Co, and saw they had a menu unlike any I’d really seen before in Philly—vegan and Burmese-inspired—I had to reach out.

On a sweltering hot day, sun blazing down, PS & Co owner Andrea Kyan and I sat in a small outdoor garden behind her shop. With her newly rescued dog Ginger at her feet, we talked about her mother’s influence on her cooking, the challenges of operating a vegan restaurant, the consistency of vegan bread, and more.

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If you want more content:

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podcast@fever4flavor.com

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Produced by Studio D Podcast Production.

If you’d like to support Fever4Flavor, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Your input helps us make the podcast even better, points us to topics that are relevant to you, and helps us reach new listeners. All you have to do is open up the Podcast App on your phone, look for Fever4Flavor, scroll down until you see ‘Write a Review’ and tell us what you think. Join me next week as we continue to explore the infinite world of food and flavors here on Fever4Flavor.

I don’t quite remember when I started drinking coffee, but I suspect it was at some point in college. When I needed to stuff as much caffeine into my underslept and over-hangovered face to make it through midterms.

But back then, coffee was simply a vehicle to transmit as much caffeine into my bloodstream as I possibly could. Now, coffee is an entirely different source of joy. I set the machine every single night; it’s among the first things I wake up to every single morning. A nice dark roast that slaps you awake with a daily jolt of complex flavor and aroma. A joke that too many people in my life have heard me say is that at any given point, my body is composed of about 88% caffeine.

But when you go to a great cafe… it’s not just about the coffee, is it? Of course not! You gotta have a little bit of a pastry too, right? Maybe a plain croissant on some days. Maybe there’s caution to the wind, we’ll do a chocolate croissant, or a beignet kinda deal, maybe a sticky bun from Dot’s in Ocean City New Jersey. Best sticky buns in the actual universe.

The hunt for people who understand flavors with serious depth and complexity, like coffee and wine, but who also understand the importance of the onsite customer experience, eventually led me to two people, actually: Kelsey Bush, chef/owner of Green Engine Coffee, Bloomsday, and Loretta’s, and Sara May, the Events & Operations Manager for the Bloomsday restaurant group.

Together, these self-proclaimed “gab specialists" and food and flavor veterans bring decades of experience covering the many ways that coffee, pastries, and an excellent dining experience can be delivered. So I sat down with them at Bloomsday with a sampling of orangedew and toad skin melon, and from white chocolate pistachio danishes to pop tarts, we chopped it up.

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If you want more content:

fever4flavor.com

podcast@fever4flavor.com

Instagram | @fever4flavor

Produced by Studio D Podcast Production.

If you’d like to support Fever4Flavor, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Your input helps us make the podcast even better, points us to topics that are relevant to you, and helps us reach new listeners. All you have to do is open up the Podcast App on your phone, look for Fever4Flavor, scroll down until you see ‘Write a Review’ and tell us what you think. Join me next week as we continue to explore the infinite world of food and flavors here on Fever4Flavor.