If you want to really appreciate something, give it up for a period of time.
I recently gave up coffee for 2 months and switched to tea due to stomach digestion issues I was having. The digestion issues cleared up in a few weeks so I believe the acid in the coffee was messing me up. After 10 years of drinking multiple cups of coffee a day, I definitely missed it. So now that my stomach is doing well, I decided to have a cup of coffee once every few weeks or so.
Last week I met my friend Steve at Starbucks and we had a french press of Sumatra. Because I knew this would be my only coffee for awhile, I sat and smelled it for about a minute before sipping it. Then I slowly drank it, really focusing on enjoying each sip. The interesting thing is that is smelled soooo good and tasted even better than I had remembered coffee tasting in a long time.
That got me thinking about other things in life that are taken for granted and not fully appreciated for what they bring to us. Do we actually need to give something up in order to fully appreciate it? Or perhaps it's just a state of mind for slowing down, being present, and focusing on fully enjoying it.