Are you a supertaster? How does that affect your taste preference for coffee?

Are you a supertaster? And how does it affect what kind of coffee you like to drink? “A supertaster is a person who experiences the sense of taste with far greater intensity than average, with some studies showing an increased sensitivity to bitter tastes. It may be a cause of selective eating.^​1​” Because of this increased sensitivity, many supertasters do not like black coffee as the bitterness would be too overwhelming. Have you noticed that friends or family may have such different preferences on the type of coffee they like? Maybe some of you are supertasters!

People have varying amounts of taste buds on their tongue. Generally those with the most are supertasters. Those with less than the average number of taste buds are non-tasters. Supertasters and non-tasters each account for approximately 25% of the population, with average tasters about 50% of the population. “Supertasters are less likely to enjoy leafy greens, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, dark chocolate, dark roast coffee, spicy peppers (capsaicin causes physical pain), creamy or especially sweet desserts.^​2​” “The opposite of supertasters are non-tasters. Non-tasters have very few taste buds and, to them, most food may seem bland and unexciting.^​3​” I think this helps to explain why people might have differing preferences and tastes in coffee. In the next section, we’ll talk about how to see which type of taster you may be. There are many other factors that play into coffee preference, but I have consistently noticed that non-tasters prefer stronger coffee. So when your friend or relative is adding salt or hot sauce to your cooking, don’t be insulted. They just might be a non-taster!

There are a few ways to find out if you are a supertaster, an average taster or a non-taster. This article explains two different methods, including visually inspecting your taste buds and using a test strip. “Testing a person’s sensitivity to a bitter chemical called 6-n-propylthiouracil (PROP) is a more definitive way to determine if he or she is a supertaster; non-tasters can’t taste PROP, but supertasters can and really don’t like its bitter taste! Average tasters can taste it too, but its bitter taste is not strong enough to bother them.^​3​” Often, PTC (phenylthiocarbamide) test strips are also used in many test kits that are sold, however they are best used to test for non-tasters as the general population tastes this as bitter about 75% of the time^​1​. For non-tasters, both PROP and PTC test strips will taste just like paper to them. In my experience, PTC tasted bitter to supertasters and average tasters, but there didn’t seem to be a differing intensity that could differentiate between super and average tasters. When using the PROP to test, it helps to do it with a group of people so you can see the difference in reactions. It seems that the supertasters will react very strongly to the taste as they almost immediately spit it out and have a strong “blech!” look on their face. Average tasters seem to taste some bitterness after a few seconds, sometimes increasing in bitterness intensity with time.

I’ve used these PROP test strips with success, and at $7-8 for 100ct they are much cheaper than some kits that sell online for basically one of these strips for close to $5. I’ve also tried these Test Kits that include other chemical strips along with a control strip for more thorough testing and is used often for genetics demonstrations in classes.

So now that we are armed with this interesting bit of information on how different people have different perceptions of taste and intensity, I want to urge you to not automatically group certain tasters with certain coffee flavor profiles. There are so many other factors that can influence a person’s love of coffee. If you are reading this blog, then you are likely very passionate about coffee. Let that passion resolve into hope that someone else will find a love for coffee. And I hope this information will give us a different perspective of what other coffee drinkers may be experiencing and why they may like something utterly different than we would like.