My Results of Supertaster Tests

My husband asked me what was so good about being a supertaster. Well, more things can be too sweet to them, or more things can be too bitter. Vegetables, in fact, taste bitter to a supertaster, so they avoid them, and thus are more susceptible to cancers, and it is proven that they have more cancerous colon polyps than non-tasters.

However, besides bragging rights, supertasters can be skinnier, especially women in their 40s, because they are more sensitive to sugar and dairy fats, which leads them to not crave junky foods. They also eat less, so there could be less heart disease.

But the real thing to remember about all this is that different people have different tastes, and that really matters in the wine, beer, and cider world. A supertaster and all of their ability to taste might really dislike a drink that a regular and non-taster love. Remember John Cleese’s Wine for the Confused? He had blind taste tests between six wines asking people which one was worth $5 and which one was worth $200, and the group had no consensus. So one person’s $5 bottle is another person’s $200 bottle, and vice versa. While Mike Steinberger was learning if he was a supertaster or not, he said , “I also had a conversation with Tim Hanni, a Napa-based master of wine who has done extensive research into the science of taste—research that has convinced him that wine criticism is pretty much worthless, given how much individual palates vary.”

So remember:

• Everyone had different tastes.
• Find out what you like.
• Don’t let people push you around on what to consume.
• Do use other people’s experience on what they tasted guide you.
• Don’t expect your tasting experience to be same as someone else’s because you are two different people.

As for me, well, I tried the dye experiment, but found it too difficult to count as the paper was either too far away to see though the hole, or it was getting wet from my tongue. So I went to http://supertastertest.com/ and purchased a test kit. It was a little piece of paper that you put on your tongue. According to the directions, a supertaster will find it to taste very bitter, a taster will find it to taste mildly bitter, and a non-taster will find it tastes like paper.

My husband said it tasted like paper, and therefore, he said he was “bitter tolerant.” I found the paper to taste bitter, but not in such a way that I was spitting it out, so I am just a “taster.”