Component screening should reduce the inventory to a plausible working pool before the blender expands promising formulas into multiple branches.
With only two or three bottles, formal pool reduction may be trivial. The principle still applies when the inventory grows or when several bottles perform the same role.
Elliott’s professional sequence separates two search problems: which batches deserve consideration and which proportions work together. Combining both at once creates too many variables. At consumer scale, profile all candidates, retain only those with a plausible role, make a few distinct base formulas, and expand only the strongest directions.
Professional candidate counts are examples, not consumer requirements.
A Zettel is one durable idea in your own words—not a quotation, source summary, or draft-book claim.
Atomic idea
State one complete idea. It should be understandable on its own and specific enough to connect to other notes.
Reasoning
Explain why the idea is true or useful in Rationale and Implications. Record meaningful objections or exceptions in Counterpoints.
Provenance
Connect one or more Literature Notes. Direct source relations are legacy-only; trace evidence through the literature-note and excerpt chain.
Connections
Apply approved Tags for retrieval and one or more Themes only when the note genuinely advances those interpretive threads.