For me, they taste bittersweet -- they've definitely got bitter in them, and definitely have sweetness, too, so they've got that thing going on that chocolate has where the two play off of each other. So, yeah, they taste good. Lis, on the other hand, can't stand them, because they don't taste anything other than terribly bitter.
"Alcohol tasting sweet" often goes along with being a non-taster -- a person who lacks the ability to taste certain bitter compounds, which goes along with having fewer taste buds than average. The inability to taste phenylthiocarbamide is correlated with the inability to taste the bitter compounds in things in the cabbage/Brussels sprouts/broccoli families, with a lower-than-average taste bud density, and with alcohol tasting sweet. Also, since each taste bud has pain receptors, too, we experience spicy food as less spicy, and are therefore more likely to be chiliheads -- the same Scoville number just plain hurts less to us than average. It's a statistical correlation, so there can be people out there who have some of those characteristics but not others, but I personally fall into all of those categories.
There's some evidence that being a non-taster also correlates to overeating, because we just don't reach flavor satiety as quickly as average. We taste less, so eat more food in order to get the same amount of flavor. This ALSO ties into the "chilihead" thing, in that it creates a more dramatic eating experience.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-06 05:23 pm (UTC)"Alcohol tasting sweet" often goes along with being a non-taster -- a person who lacks the ability to taste certain bitter compounds, which goes along with having fewer taste buds than average. The inability to taste phenylthiocarbamide is correlated with the inability to taste the bitter compounds in things in the cabbage/Brussels sprouts/broccoli families, with a lower-than-average taste bud density, and with alcohol tasting sweet. Also, since each taste bud has pain receptors, too, we experience spicy food as less spicy, and are therefore more likely to be chiliheads -- the same Scoville number just plain hurts less to us than average. It's a statistical correlation, so there can be people out there who have some of those characteristics but not others, but I personally fall into all of those categories.
There's some evidence that being a non-taster also correlates to overeating, because we just don't reach flavor satiety as quickly as average. We taste less, so eat more food in order to get the same amount of flavor. This ALSO ties into the "chilihead" thing, in that it creates a more dramatic eating experience.