Bitter or Sweet Coffee: Which Tastes Better? Why People Sensitive to Bitterness Drink More

Life is only complete when it has both bitterness and sweetness.

This classic saying will surely resonate with many readers. After all, without experiencing bitterness, how can one truly appreciate the happiness that sweetness brings? This sentiment seems to be deeply ingrained in every coffee drinker, who has even developed new insights based on it: because life has more bitterness, it makes the sweetness even more apparent.

I wonder if you know people around you who say one thing but do another. One moment they're complaining that coffee is too bitter and doesn't taste good. The next moment, you turn around and find that same person queuing to buy coffee. Of course, there's also the possibility that the coffee they're buying isn't bitter at all—such as milk-based coffee or coffee with added sugar, which can mask the bitterness.

According to a November 15, 2018 report by NPR, a study published in the same month in Nature's Scientific Reports showed that people's sensitivity to bitterness affects their coffee consumption. The results of this study seem contrary to what we typically understand.

But the results truly suggest that the more sensitive people are to coffee's bitterness, the more coffee they drink.

The researchers of this study analyzed data stored in the UK Bio-bank. On this internationally influential and largest data platform, over half a million people have donated blood, urine, and saliva samples, which scientists can use to solve various research questions. Volunteers also filled out questionnaires answering various health-related questions, including their coffee consumption.

Researchers carefully analyzed data from over 500,000 participants to identify people who were more sensitive to one or more of three bitter compounds: caffeine, quinine, and propylthiouracil.

When participants were cross-referenced with their self-reported coffee consumption, researchers found that people who were genetically more sensitive to the bitter taste of caffeine consumed more coffee than those less sensitive to caffeine's bitterness. But interestingly, those sensitive to quinine or propylthiouracil consumed less coffee.

Marilyn Cornelis, an assistant professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine and one of the study's authors, hypothesized about this counterintuitive finding. She suggested that what changes people's minds isn't the taste itself, but what they associate with that taste. People might associate coffee's bitterness with the energy and vitality that coffee provides.

This study, published three years ago, proves the interesting phenomenon that people who can't handle coffee's bitterness often end up drinking the most coffee. From this, we can derive a deeper understanding: with bitterness as a contrast, sweetness suddenly becomes so much more precious.

Can you share with us whether you're someone who dislikes bitterness but still loves drinking coffee?

Image source: Internet

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