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.”

Are You a Supertaster? Take a Supertaster Test

There are three main ways to test if one is a super taster – count taste buds or consume two products.

As I mentioned before, supertasters have more fungiform papillae type taste buds, which makes them a little more sensitive when tasting. These taste buds can be counted by swabbing your tongue with a cotton ball with blue food coloring. The fungiform papillae will not turn blue, but instead remain pink. From there, take a piece of paper with a hole cut out of it and count how many pink spots you see in that hole. Supertasters will have more than 30 papillae in that area. BBC Science and Nature shows a good example of this demonstration.

Another easy test to conduct is a Saccharin Test. Take one packet of saccharin (Sweet’N Low) and combine it with two-thirds of a cup of water, and then taste it. For some, there will be a dominate sweet taste, indicating that they are an undertaster, while others will notice a dominate bitter taste, indicating they are a supertaster. Those who find balance between sweet and bitter are regular tasters.

The last test is to consume PROP, which will be violently bitter to supertasters, bitter to regular tasters, and tasteless to undertasters.

I highly recommend reading wine critic Mike Steinberger’s journey to find out that he was one of the 5% of nontasters (not a supertaster) who could taste PROP. This resulted in more testing.

Sources:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supertaster
  
• http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/PersonalBest/story?id=2740603
  
• http://supertastertest.com/
  
• http://www.slate.com/id/2168768
  
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/body/articles/senses/tongue_experiment.shtml
  
• http://health.howstuffworks.com/taste4.htm
  

Wine for the Confused

In 2004, the Food Network aired John Cleese’s (of Monty Python fame) Wine for the Confused. It was a low budget film in which he went to wineries near his house to learn about the big six grapes and their wine.

He also had some novice wine drinkers do some blind taste tests. The first one was to identify out of six wines which one was a $200 bottle and which one was the $5 bottle. The results were all over the board. His point to this was that one should not let another person dictate what kind of wine they like or how much to spend because one person’s $200 bottle is another person’s $5 bottle. Go with what you feel comfortable with and with what you like.

However, he did recommend working with a sommelier. By this, he means finding a sommelier that you like and become their regular. You tell them what you like, and they can recommend other things that you might like. However, you have to be willing to try things. There was a spoof, which I can’t find now, about how a person asked about a wine, the sommelier told them about it, but then they asked if it was like a particular style of wine that they liked. Well, it was a different style, so of course it tastes different.

You can watch it for free on hulu.