What is Subtlety For?

If you drink a glass of orange juice and it tastes like really good orange juice, you’ll be pleased. (If you just brushed your teeth, you will have ruined your day. Don’t.)

If you drink a glass of orange juice and it tastes really good, but you notice something else in the background, under the sweetness and the rounded acidity; a sharper flavor, but slightly spicy and earthy… cardamom?

An abundance of cardamom would loudly declare its presence and you would know it immediately. (“Who the hell put spices in my orange juice!?”) A little cardamom lets you consider the flavors and wonder—and then you recognize it.

That’s what subtlety is for: a chance to notice something small, something delicate in the background. Not for any particular reason, but perhaps to be “in on the joke” or as an homage to the effort that went into putting it there.