Coffee Tastes Bitter, So Why Do People Drink It?
It may sound surprising, but people who are supersensitive to coffee's bitter taste actually drink more of it, a new study finds.
This sensitivity isn't simply a matter of taste, either, but rather is influenced by a person's genetic makeup, the researchers said in the study.
"You'd expect that people who are particularly sensitive to the bitter taste of caffeine would drink less coffee," said study senior researcher Marilyn Cornelis. "The opposite results of our study suggest coffee consumers acquire a taste for or an ability to detect the bitterness of caffeine due to the learned positive reinforcement brought out by caffeine."
Put another way, people who have a heightened ability to taste the bitterness of coffee learn to associate "good things with it," Cornelis said. This finding is surprising, given that bitterness often serves as a warning mechanism to convince people to spit out harmful substances, the scientists said.
Researchers conducted the study to understand how genetics influences people's consumption of tea, coffee and alcohol which tend to taste bitter, said lead researcher Jue Sheng Ong.
"While all bitter flavors may seem the same, we perceive the bitterness of Brussels sprouts(抱子甘蓝), quinine(奎宁) and caffeine separately," Ong told Live Science. "The degree to which we find these flavors bitter is, in part, determined by your genes."
People with the genes to taste the bitterness of green vegetables are more likely to prefer tea to coffee. In addition, people who were more sensitive to quinine's bitter flavors and those found in green vegetables tended to avoid coffee.