I used to live in San Francisco by this taqueria that had one of the best salsas I’ve ever tasted. I would buy jars of it regularly and once I even thought about sending a refrigerated jar of it to a friend on the east coast, it was that good. When I moved out of San Francisco, I was pleased to see that it was available in my local grocery store, the salsa from that taqueria. I excitedly bought a jar. When I got home and opened it, though, I was disappointed. It tasted similar but not the same as the salsa they served at the taqueria. I’m not sure if I’ll buy another jar from the grocery store.
It reminded me of the time I had a waffle in Belgium. I had eaten Belgian waffles many times before, outside of Belgium, and never really thought anything of it. But when I ate a Belgian waffle in Belgium—a Belgian Belgian waffle—wow, it was borderline life changing. It was how every other waffle probably wished it was. It was so good that I felt like telling the country of Belgium that they should share this national treasure with the rest of the world. And I guess someone tried to, but sometimes when things are too far away from the original source, they lose their special flavor and get diluted. Kind of like how you can tell when your customer service representative is part of a very large company or is the single person behind a one-person shop.