Great article Larry. Never thought I was a super taster, but perhaps I am. Always thought cilantro and scallion aversion were tell tale signs, and I am fine with both. Cappuccino is perfect as milk when heated gives the espresso just a hint of sweetness.
Asian teas are great black, while with English type teas I add milk/cream.
I found my palate for wine and coffee were similar, since I have favorite terroirs/strong preference for coffee beans, Africa specifically Kenya and Ethiopia.
so, so disturbing, it’s stuck with me all these years.
Yep. I don’t even want to be in the same room with whoever came up with the concept. *shudder*
Our perceptions are highly malleable. Our brains recalibrate in-the-moment, toning down a bolder taste or smell and allowing us to perceive the more subtle aspects of something. We also do that in an intermediate term sense, like entering a room with a funny smell. After some time we acclimate and don’t even notice it. Step out of the room for a minute then re-enter, and you smell it again.
In the long term we can adjust our taste sensitivity. We can wean ourselves away from high sugar or salt intake in a way we won’t even notice (in theory, at least, if we could exert that much control over our food prep). Or, you can drop such intake cold turkey, and your sensitivity will adjust.
Many of us have experienced some high quality bland food a lot of people would just dismiss. But, if you give it a moment your perception will adapt and you start picking up the subtle complexity.
So, our receptors matter. The studies Al found are about marketing. That’s about some big picture demographics. Large groups of consumers whose tastes are calibrated to common diets and what their initial reactions to a new (to them) product will be.
As wine geeks, we’re a huge contrast to that. We can be totally open to a bad initial reaction to something novel (to us) in a wine. That may be something that “blows off” or otherwise resolves or something that we acclimate to. Maybe it’s a point of interest, or why that particular wine type is great with a particular food or whatever. Maybe it becomes an acquired taste.
Is taste learned or innate to our particular physiology? Yes, it’s both. As it turns out, that “nature vs nurture” question is one that interests some of the authors of the studies I linked, although generally from the perspective of how it affects marketing strategies.
-Al
fresh ground La Colombe Nizza Medium roast espresso blend made in a technivorm drip thermal carafe. 1 teaspoon of heavy cream and an organic stevia. I know I shouldn’t use sweetener. Shoot me.
Source?
We are Corsica people, no cream, no sweetener. Might try cream tomorrow.
Neal,
Many have pointed out stuff but here is another one:
This combined with asking literally hundreds and hundreds of folks in my tasting room over the past decade has given me a great sense of ‘tendencies’. Linda’s research is ‘hard science’ - mine is anecdotal. Take from it what you may, but do me a favor - ask your wine drinking friends off this board about their ‘preferences’ and my guess is that, in general, they will align with the findings . . .
Cheers
If you read that article and any number of others about supertasters, you’ll find that many, of not most, do not like wine at all. Those who do, like it light white, sweet and very cold. Although the PROP test tests for sensitivity to bitterness, actual supertasters taste all five tastes much more intensely then the rest of the population (very much includuing sweetness) and thus prefer bland food and drink. I would guess that if you are asking people who come into a wine tasting room, you are speaking to very few supertasters. On the other hand, there will be wide variances to tolerance for bitterness among any group of people, since taste is very highly influenced by upbringing, types of food you are exposed to early in life and a few thousand other things. So, if you just ask people if they like their coffee black or with cresm and sugar ( and avoid the weird choices you have instituted), I would be very surprised if there wasn’t some correlatilon between liking black coffee and not being put off by tannin and acid in wine. If you had asserted such a fairly obvious correlation at the outset, without all the red herrings, I doubt many of us would have batted an eyelash.
Only a California winemaker would come up with a theory that it is California wines that are best suited to supertasters. What a bunch of hogwash.
Larry, throughout history, many innovators who presented theories in opposition to then current ways of thinking or methodology have met with some scorn or worse.
But seriously, I admire the way that you have kept perspective as the flames keep coming your way.
I agree that the notion that supertasters will gravitate toward CA reds is silly. If Larry would only read the links he cites, he would see that notion disconfirmed. I could well see a mild statistical correlation between people who take some form of creamer in their coffee and a taste for CA wines. Probably at about the level of people who like bourbon and CA wines. Almost surely, though, anyone who likes a big CA wine (or most other wines, for that matter) is not a supertaster.
I’m sorry; I must be a little slow. I’d be grateful if you could help me see the connection between this article (or others that discuss so-called supertasters) and the proposition that people who can taste bitter do or don’t like bitter or that it connects in any way with how someone likes their coffee, if at all.
When I zest an orange, I stop before I get to the pith, because I don’t want bitter flavors in my orange zest. That fact seems entirely disconnected from whether I like endive, radicchio, coffee, whether I like fruity coffee, or whether I take cream in any kind of coffee.
If you are aware of any data that support the “people who like this thing don’t like that thing” I’d love to see it. It is entirely absent from this thread so far. (The closest I have seen is the entirely conjectural statement that “some scientists have speculated that supertasters don’t eat enough bitter vegetables.”)
I am not a super taster but despise dairy or their substitutes in my coffee. What does this make me? (A pain in the butt is already taken). I love bitter foods and drinks, though
Let me back up a bit here . . .
I think my challenge has been trying to ‘scientifically’ connect the dots between how someone drinks their coffee and what wines they may prefer. The ‘supertaster’ concept is the easiest way to explain it, but as some have pointed out, if you are a ‘super-taster’, you may not enjoy wine at all. That said, this is most likely not true:
What Does It Mean To Be A Supertaster And Do You Actually Want To Be One? | VinePair.
And this aligns with what I’ve been talking about. Let’s use David as an example - he is not a ‘super taster’ (have you been tested specifically for this and, if so, how) and he loves bitter foods and drinks . . . and this is exactly what I would expect based on the questions asked. He would considered more of a ‘non taster’ meaning that bitter foods and drinks don’t bother him at all. Based on this, and only this, I would guess his preferences in wines would be red over white in general (if even only 55% to 45%), with a lean towards crisp, acidic whites or fully textured whites like Roussanne and Marsanne and reds that are more ‘rustic and earthy’ rather than ‘fruit forward’.
All of that said, does it mean that David cannot enjoy a fruity red or off-dry white? Of course not - but again, we’re dealing with ‘preferences’ here.
Go back to flaming away . . . 
Cheers
This is not science.
I’m not flaming; I am struggling. I’m one of your biggest fans! I intend no insult at all
But it seems to me you are making wild and unsubstantiated leaps to connect two different things that seem, to me at least, and impressionistically, to be unrelated. I have no data to support my impressions. In my view, you don’t either. But I am always willing to learn, and am eager to read anything that suggests coffee preferences have anything whatever to do with wine
Again, just do me a favor - ask the basic questions with an open mind and see for yourself what tendencies exist. Let’s not call it ‘science’ - let’s call it whatever you want to.
Again, my mistake was trying to make this ‘hard core science’ - I should have taken a ‘Seinfeld’ approach and said - ‘you ever notice . . .’.
Let me know what you find out - and sorry, I should not have said ‘flamed’ - that was incorrect and I apologize.
Cheers
Jayson,
Let’s call it ‘social science’ - it’s ‘human tendencies’ and I can tell you from asking the questions each and every day for 10 years that, in fact, there are tendencies that have appeared. Are there ‘outliers’? Of course . . .
But just as I asked with Neal, talk to your non-wine geek friends and just ask them how they drink their coffee and wee where it goes from there. And ask your wine geek friends the same question.
Cheers.