I love this thread and can relate utterly with the desire to understand the parts that make up the sum.

Have spent years doing just this with Japanese food and then branching out to take in South Korean and Chinese spices and ingredients.
India is another world.

As [MENTION=64453]CDTraveler[/MENTION] explained, fats and oils will change your perception of spices. For some, they will unlock flavours (and heat can play its own part in this), but for others, it can tame or even mute them.

For actually “tasting” wasabi rather than just succumbing to the eye watering pungency, it’s recommended to spread it on pure white chocolate which is mostly made up of cocoa fat. So long as you can get a decent quality bar without too much sugar and vanilla, this should make a useful neutral base to see how fat changes an ingredient. Ice cream can be another very enjoyable way of getting to know a spice. Cheese and yogurt are prevalent in Indian cooking and white chocolate/ice cream can help with understanding their effects too.

Lightly frying an ingredient in canola/rapeseed or another oil or ghee, then allowing the oil to cool and tasting the result (with bread, mixed with pasta, on vegetables etc…) with and without salt, will show you another flavour profile

For understanding how flavours change when dissolved (again, with or without heat) an ideal base which is rich in amino acids (these also affect perception) is kombu dashi. It’s a simple broth made with water and kombu/konbu kelp. It’s essentially flavourless apart from having umami.
A bland chicken stock will provide a similar base.