Are You A Supertaster?

If people think you're a pain in the ass to feed, you probably are.

Photo by Madhi Chaghari

My entire life, I’ve been a picky eater. Food aversions (to kale, say, or Brussels sprouts) that most kids grow out of stayed with me, even intensified. My poor mother used to hide tiny pieces of meat in my pudding when I was a baby, only to have me spit them out again. In fact, the only thing I consistently liked was carrots—so many carrots that I turned yellow and she rushed me to the doctor, convinced I had jaundice.

It never occurred to me that I might have been wired a little differently when it comes to food. Quick to blame myself for everything, I naturally assumed my tastes were puerile, underdeveloped. I ate like a sulky toddler because I probably was one. But recently, it has come to light that an entire race of “supertasters” exists, people who not only have an abnormally high number of fungiform papillae (taste buds) on their tongues, but also a pronounced aversion to extreme flavors, especially things that are bitter.

Here is an brief but incomplete list of foods I would no sooner put in my mouth than a hive of bees, with a description of what each tastes like, at least to me: wine (cat urine boiled on a hot plate), beer (hot seltzer dripped from a rusty drainpipe), cilantro (Magic FX Pro Bubble Solution for blowing bubbles), black coffee (ashes raked out of a crematorium and mixed with toilet water), Listerine (Dante’s ninth circle of hell), green tea (bitter moss), chicory (the bitterest of baby kale sadistically burned with a match until it screams), chilis and/or peppers (not on your life).

Photo by Tamas Pap.

I am continually astonished by people who profess to tasting a “flavor profile” in things like hot sauces that set my entire face ablaze. Even connoisseurs of wine (“slight citrus tings, white peach notes, a hint of pear”), I feel certain are lying. How are they getting all that from something that tastes like napalm to me? Beer, same. Spirits, forget it.

All these years of sliding a protective hand over my wine glass when the hostess leans over to pour have made me an object of suspicion, if not scathing condescension. “Oh, I’m sorry,” one woman told me. “Are you in a 12-step program?” When asked to buy wine as a housewarming gift, I panic. Seeing me in the liquor aisle must be like watching a Rhesus monkey do long division.

Some people laud my avoidance of alcohol. “You’re better off for it,” they’ll say, or “It’s just unnecessary calories.” Others who watch me cringing and wincing through a sip of wine snidely remark that Hitler, Trump, and Putin are all teetotalers. No one believes me when I tell them I was born with faulty electrical conduits. What to them tastes like a symphony of leather, baking spices, and vanilla is, to me, a three-alarm fire.

Lest we glamorize the condition, I will say this: being a supertaster confers no special powers or privileges. Put a leash over my head and send me to the airport to sniff baggage for contraband, I will sorely disappoint. My sense of smell is exquisitely acute, it is true, but probably nothing out of the common way. That’s why the name “supertaster” is, I believe, a misnomer. It is far more apt to call me, and others like me, “bitter-ists,” not supertasters. Our experience of bitterness and acidity is, perhaps, greater, than some, but it ends there. All that translates into is you busting your ass in the kitchen and me slyly moving little piles of spinach around on my plate.

Photo by Henley Design Studios.

Could you be a supertaster? One in four are. The rest fall into two separate categories: medium tasters (50%) and non-tasters (25%) .

According to Healthline, there’s no one definitive way of knowing what camp you’re in, but here’s a good place to start:

1. Do you find certain vegetables, such as broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and kale to be too bitter?

2. Do you hate the bitterness of coffee or tea?

3. Do you find high-fat or high-sugar foods to be unpalatable?

4. Do you shy away from spicy foods?

5. Do you consider yourself a picky eater?

6. Do you find alcohol, like hard liquor or beer, to be too bitter to drink?

Here’s how I might answer these questions.

1. Steamed broccoli is okay, especially when salted (supertasters tend to be saltaholics, ergo my decided preference for well-salted popcorn.) Forget the Brussels sprouts or the kale.

2. All tea and coffee MUST be adulterated by milk and sugar.

3. Anything too sweet is overwhelming. High-fat is okay, but not my first choice.

4. No spicy foods. Ever.

5. Yes.

6. All forms of alcohol are vile.

There’s this whole thing where you can take a three-ring binder hole reinforcement (they resemble a tiny flat doughnut with a circle in the center), dab your tongue with blue food dye (which throws into bold relief your pink mushroom-shaped fungiform papillae) and then count them. Within that six-millimeter circle, you should discover more than thirty-five bumps if you’re a supertaster, fifteen to thirty-five if you’re a medium taster, and fewer than fifteen if you’re a non-taster. But many experts claim that the method is often inconclusive, and that entire colonies of papillae can exist on the sides of your tongue or within its fissures.

Another method is to find a taste researcher and demand to be studied, but I suspect you already know the answer to the question of whether you’re a supertaster. You’ve always known. In my case, I just wish I could have known sooner.

It makes you feel bad, knowing you don’t enjoy the same exquisite taste sensations that everybody else raves about. Not only do I hate the taste of alcohol, I can’t stand chili. My hometown of Houston is awash in chili. Right now, in fact, the annual rodeo is underway, and gathered beneath an enormous tent are all the area’s chili enthusiasts doing their cookoff. Pro tip: if you ever wanted to torture me for information, just take me to a chili cookoff. I’ll tell you whatever you need to know.

I also hate fish, which causes people to stare at me in genuine alarm.

So, what do I like to eat? Avocados. Water chestnuts. Rice. Mild cheeses, especially ricotta and mozzarella. Consistency is just as important as flavor to me, which is why mushrooms are a hard sell. They may taste earthy and delicious to you; to me, they’re like eating dirt.

Being a supertaster hasn’t exactly been a blessing over the years. My thrifty, Depression-Era godmother used to lose her mind trying to feed me. I hear my boyfriend, John, occasionally gnashing his teeth, too. Now that I have actual data to throw in his face, data that proves I’m not trying to be difficult, it helps. But between my fun new gluten intolerance and my hyperactive supertaster sensibilities, it’s a wonder anybody invites me over for dinner.

Would you?

Are you a supertaster, a medium taster, or a non-taster? I’d love to hear! Leave your comments below.