Sensitivity

I mentioned that different people will have different sensitivity to tastes based on the number of taste buds that they have. In order to help us make sense of this, we will assign people to one of four groups but because we are dealing with humans, it won’t be a perfect logical ordering. The four groups are sensitive, hypersensitive, tolerant and sweet.

These groups are named by the ability of people to taste things. The sensitive group is just that, where people are able to taste just about everything. The hyper sensitive group is the group where the people have the most taste buds, and not only are they able to taste everything, but they may find some tastes too intense for their liking. For example, the people in this group may find the taste of cilantro just too overwhelming for them and they can’t have even a little in a dish before it is ruined for them.

The next group is the tolerant group. These people have the least number of taste buds and there are no tastes that they are overwhelmed by. Just as an aside, Robert Parker the famous wine critic, is a tolerant taster. That is why he will find drinkable many things that most of us would pour down the drain. It is also why it is important to find a wine critic whose palate is similar to your own; if you are a hypersensitive taster then Robert Parker’s recommendations are not going to be pleasant for you.

The final group is the sweet group. This the group that just throws off the nice linear scale of groupings based on the number of taste buds because this is all about preference. You see, these people just prefer sweet things. You can easily figure out which category you fall into based on your own experiences and by a visual inspection of your tongue. If your tongue is completely flat then you are most likely in the tolerant category. If your tongue has got canyons on it, then you are most likely in the hypersensitive category.

Next up, we’re going to talk about the nose and how it plays a role in all of this.