People Sensitive To Caffeine's Bitter Taste Drink More Coffee, Study Finds (npr.org)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: A team of researchers conducted their analysis using data stored in something called the UK Biobank. More than 500,000 people have contributed blood, urine and saliva samples to the biobank, which scientists can use to answer various research questions. The volunteers also filled out questionnaires asking a variety of health-related questions, including how much coffee they drink. Part of what determines our sensitivity to bitter substances is determined by the genes we inherit from our parents. So the researchers used genetic analysis of samples from the biobank to find people who were more or less sensitive to three bitter substances: caffeine, quinine (think tonic water) and a chemical called propylthiouracil that is frequently used in genetic tests of people's ability to taste bitter compounds.

Then they looked to see if people sensitive to one or more of these substances drank more or less coffee than people who were not sensitive. To the researchers' surprise, people who were more sensitive to caffeine reported increased coffee consumption compared with people who were less sensitive. The result was restricted to the bitterness of caffeine. People sensitive to quinine and propylthiouracil -- neither of which is in coffee -- tended to drink less coffee. The effect of increased caffeine sensitivity was small: it only amounted to about two tablespoons more coffee per day. But by analyzing so many samples, the researchers were able to detect even small differences like that. The reason may be that people "learn to associate that bitter taste with the stimulation that coffee can provide," says one of the study authors.

Comments

Seems like bitter can be appealing though

[SuperKendall]

It could be that people associate bitter taste with the stimulation coffee gives; but what if people just like bitter tastes?

Though I don't really drink coffee (it has in the past generally had the opposite effect for me, making me sleepy) I love the taste and eat lots of coffee flavored stuff just for the taste. Same for bitter chocolate, and I think a number of other foods.

There's no "reward" in it for me apart from the taste, so I can see a lot of people simply liking a bitter taste even without any benefit of alertness involved...

Re:Seems like bitter can be appealing though

[myvirtualid]

Absolutely! I drink a LOT of coffee (black, strong, no sugar), and I also love IPAs, the higher the IBU the better. In fact, I don't really notice the bitterness anymore, I notice the flavour of both coffee and beer. It's sort of like how one notices the flavour of spicy food after adjusting to the heat of the spice (which I have done and love).

Re:Seems like bitter can be appealing though

[hey!]

I suspect we can conclude nothing about bitter flavor and coffee preference from this other than they're correlated.

Stuff like this gets correlated all the time. It could be like red hair's correlation with altered pain perception; both are diverse effects of a single underlying mutation. Genetic variations with bitter tasting are also associated with trans-cellular membrane transport of certain classes of proteins that have effects throughout the body.

Or it could be that people learn to like the bitter flavor of coffee in the way that dogs learn to enjoy the sound of the dog trainer's clicker device. This is how people tend to crave foods that they habitually eat, even if they don't initially like those foods. The same goes for listening to music, which is why record companies do their best to saturate your experience with a new song. As long as they aren't conscious of being forced to listen to the song, the more they've heard a song the more they'll seek to hear it again.

Re:Seems like bitter can be appealing though

[Aighearach]

This seems a lot more likely, since if you drink the same amount of coffee consistently every day it doesn't have much of a stimulative effect.

For that reason, I would expect people who use it as a stimulant to have much lower total consumption.

Re:Seems like bitter can be appealing though

[rtb61]

No reward in it for you apart from the taste, baw hah hah. Don't you live in a little fantasy world. I can assure you if you are drinking fully decaffeinated coffee, it is the caffeine that has you hooked, regardless of whether you accept it or not. To test yourself, simply drop all caffeine consumption for 24 hours and see how you feel. You might not consciously notice the continuous dribble of caffeine but your brain will and its physiological state will alter when caffeine no longer enters for an extended period of time.

People seem to think this sort of stuff has to happen after one drink, oh no, my fuzzy friend, this sort of stuff is reinforced bit by bit over thousands drinks over hundreds of days, you don't consciously note it happening at all but you will consciously note it's absence and 'CRAVE', the consumption of what makes you brain 'FEEL' better, note better, rather than good. The concept of good or bad does not accurately define brain state decision making, far more accurate is the concept of better or worse, as it accurately explains quite negative behaviours, that for many would be worse and to be avoided but would be pursued by others because it is better than their current state.

Ye, the physiology of your brain is constantly tweaking your decision making so that it will feel better or worse it terms of it's bio-chemical state, regardless of what ever the fuck you think you are thinking.

Re:Seems like bitter can be appealing though

[SuperKendall]

I can assure you if you are drinking fully decaffeinated coffee, it is the caffeine that has you hooked,

That's the thing though, I'm not drinking any coffee - defat or otherwise, because like I said the few times I tried it made me sleepy (like almost fell asleep at the wheel sleepy one time).

I'm more talking about coffee flavor in things - like ice cream, or ground up bits of coffee in chocolate. Along with many other bitter flavors.

It's enough of a variety of bitter things that I like, I'm pretty sure stimulus is not a part of it as I don't have anything regularly enough to get hooked on that aspect.

Re:Seems like bitter can be appealing though

[ljw1004]

No reward in it for you apart from the taste, baw hah hah. Don't you live in a little fantasy world. I can assure you if you are drinking fully decaffeinated coffee, it is the caffeine that has you hooked, regardless of whether you accept it or not. To test yourself, simply drop all caffeine consumption for 24 hours and see how you feel. You might not consciously notice the continuous dribble of caffeine but your brain will and its physiological state will alter when caffeine no longer enters for an extended period of time.

Challenge accepted. I drink one or two decaf lattes a day. I make it myself on the coffee machine at work, so I pull the espresso only for the first 10 seconds or so while it's still dark and thick. This produces about 10 drops, about 1tsp worth, not quite enough to cover the bottom of the cup. I add about 2tbl of frothed milk.

I don't consume any other caffeine products (I have a pretty basic diet - salads for lunch and dinner, with grains and steamed vegetables and no dessert, and water to drink but no alcohol or soft drinks).

When I drop all caffeine consumption, I notice no difference in my mental state, nor do people around me. I don't have a coffee machine at home so I routinely have no coffee at the weekends. There are several days where in retrospect I realize I've been so busy that I didn't end up having any coffee, and it all feels fine.

(There are times when they bring in decaf beans that I assume have a higher caffeine level than I'm used to, and I notice it within the first half sip, and reject the coffee. About a quarter of the time at restaurants when they bring decaf coffee I don't drink it because I presume the caffeine level is too high. When my wife makes decaf coffee in her drip machine, the caffeine level there is too high for my preferences almost all the time).

Yep, I drink coffee because I like the flavor!

Re:Seems like bitter can be appealing though

[epine]

No reward in it for you apart from the taste, baw hah hah. Don't you live in a little fantasy world. I can assure you if you are drinking fully decaffeinated coffee, it is the caffeine that has you hooked, regardless of whether you accept it or not.

This sounds like an exit poll conducted after a secret AA meeting.

The vast majority of coffee drinkers are operating in the dependency zone. This is where you can't go without coffee for more than 24 hours without at least feeling lethargic, and more likely, getting a gripping headache at the top of the neck.

Caffeine has a stimulating effect, it has a toleration effect, and it has a flat affect effect.

As I have an N24 sleep disorder, I pretty much lived in the caffeine abuse zone in the mid-nineties, until I came to my senses.

Now I drink a single cup of coffee on waking, made with 10 g of ground beans, and 180 g of water (high-quality light-roast single origins often brew best at 18:1, whereas cheaper coffees often brew better at 16:1 by mass). For all you Americans, that's a single six ounce serving per day. I use a gram scale to weigh my beans to 10.0 grams every morning. This prevents escalation. (Your subjective sense is that every morning should begin with one more bean than the day before. This adds up quick.)

Six ounces per day is very close to caffeine's peak window as a stimulant, with low dependency, and minimal flattening of affect. I really dislike it on the rare days when I run out of beans, but I function just fine. Because I only have one coffee, the caffeine is almost completely cleared from my system at bedtime, and has minimal effect on my sleep quality.

I like the taste of coffee, and if the natural beans had half as much caffeine in them, I'd surely drink a second 6 ounce cup mid morning. But now that I've come to my senses, there's no way I would ever increase my caffeine levels above my current consumption level. I learned my lesson the hard way.

It actually feels good to finally escape the flattened affect, but this is hard to notice initially, while you're still in the shit-warmed-over headache zone.

It's extremely easy to kick (or control) your caffeine habit without going through the shit-warmed-over zone.

What you need is a slow downward taper. But this is almost impossible to achieve in modern coffee culture, where the amount of caffeine in whatever random coffee you drink is highly variable (and excessive, in many of the most popular brands). One Mermaid, in particular, will laugh at you if you try to order a four ounce coffee (probably the appropriate size given the typically high caffeine levels in this brand) as if your dick is 4" long. Avoid the Mermaid, she's nothing but trouble.

Make every coffee yourself at home in the morning. Pour-over is the best method for controlling consumption. It takes me 3 minutes and 45 seconds to heat the kettle (on the stove) and a ceramic cone (in the microwave). Then it takes me 2 minutes and 30 seconds to finish pouring the coffee (plus another 30 seconds for it to finish steeping). It's pretty much guaranteed I can find 5 minutes of kitchen chores to complete every morning while my coffee brews.

Taper down by 2% per day (i.e. constantly multiply your previous day by 0.98). By the rule of 70, your consumption will decline by half in 35 days. Depending where you start, you'll arrive at your final destination in one month, or two months, or three months. No headaches, no shit-warmed-over trudge, with better energy, better affect, and better sleep.

Make sure you have no other major caffeine sources (I limit myself to small pieces of chocolate and the occasional green tea).

Every so often, my sleep deteriorates for its own reasons, and I'll drink a second coffee (brewed with 7 to 10 grams of beans) to get me through a personal crisis of sluggishness and lethargy.

If I draw from this treacherous well two days in a row, once I return to my standard discipline, I'll end up consta

Re:Alternative

[Archangel Michael]

I don't like Tonic Water at all. I can't stand sugar in my coffee, and love coffee. I also prefer my coffee ICED

i love a good cup of strong coffee

[FudRucker]

i have two Bialetti Moka pots, a French press and two stove top percolators, one percolator is over 50 years old its a Revereware with a copper bottom,

Re:i love a good cup of strong coffee

[serviscope_minor]

i have two Bialetti Moka pots, a French press and two stove top percolators, one percolator is over 50 years old its a Revereware with a copper bottom,

(one moks pot and a french press here).

Percolators seem to have gone way out of fashion at the moment. My in-laws have a vintage ceramic bodied elecric one. Produces amazing coffee.

Re:i love a good cup of strong coffee

[mjwx]

i have two Bialetti Moka pots, a French press and two stove top percolators, one percolator is over 50 years old its a Revereware with a copper bottom,

I love good coffee, however coffee shouldn't be bitter.

America does so many culinary items quite well, however coffee is one of the few failures because it's brewed to be extremely bitter. It completely ruins the flavour of the coffee.

Coffee in the UK or Australia is vastly more drinkable and flavoursome and rarely bitter.

I've got a Gaggia espresso maker and Aeropress for work. I use quality coffee, my favourite is imported from Antioquia, Colombia but at a pinch M&S beans will suffice. Its the quality of the beans that matters.

Re:Coffee is disgusting

[vidnet]

Caffeine pills are $0.05 each on Amazon. I'm surprised you're trying to save that cost.

Re:Coffee is disgusting

[helpfulcorn]

A local grocery store sells caffeine pills for 90 for $2.50. And you underestimate how much caffeine I consume and how cheap I am. Plus my primary thought process was that perhaps I was taking too much because pills are easier to take than consuming X amount of liquid so that would slow me down.

Re: Alternative

[ChunderDownunder]

Try adding some gin to your tonic water!

Re:Coffee is disgusting

[demon driver]

I find cheap run-of-the-mill coffee disgusting, but I do like good coffee. Interestingly, in the context of the subject, what I would call a good coffee is not bitter at all.

That said, caffeine is irrelevant. You only "need" caffeine if you've become used to it. If you just stop taking caffeine, whether as coffee or as pills, after a few days of withdrawal symptoms (headache) you'll be just as awake without caffeine as you used to be with it before.

Re:Coffee is disgusting

[helpfulcorn]

I've never had caffeine withdrawl, there have been a lot of times where I had to stop or just stopped for whatever reason. I've wondered if this has something to do with how caffeine interacts with ADHD. Caffeine itself, like many people with ADHD, doesn't keep me awake as much as it helps me focus.

Really?

[nospam007]

People who like bitter stuff drink bitter stuff?

Who would have thought?

Re:Really?

[RhettLivingston]

They said they were sensitive to it, not that they like it.

I am very sensitive to bitter tastes, do not like them, avoid most bitter foods, and drink a lot of black coffee despite the fact that I don't like the bitterness. In an odd way, that is sort of why I drink it. I posted below that that sort of makes it worthwhile in a medicinal way.

My wife doesn't seem to have the ability to taste "bitter" and so would be determined to not be sensitive to bitterness. She likes a lot of foods that I consider very bitter and can't stand. She describes the taste of those foods with terms other than bitter. I can't taste those other flavors through the overwhelming bitterness and so can't appreciate what she is tasting. And, yes, she hates coffee.

I suspect these findings on coffee would hold for many alcoholic beverages that are bitter as well. There are quite a few that are considered acquired tastes that I find to be extremely bitter.

Re:Seriously?

[pjt33]

It's not a very useful measurement. Is that two tablespoons of ground beans, instant granules, espresso, or the milk and ice with about 1ppm of actual coffee which places like Starbucks sell?

Spurious correlation

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a spurious correlation. Comb through enough data, you don't get extra sensitivity like these idiot study authors think, you find spurious correlations.

this is

[Presence Eternal]

Probably why I like the taste of 5 hour energy yet think caffiene free coke is disgusting.

Yep, still bitter...

[grumling]

Surly this one will be good...
(sip)
Nope. Still bitter.

I drink a liter of coffee a day. Good coffee, that costs more than most people are willing to pay. It's not bitter. It's coffee flavored. I have a $150 grinder for the whole bean coffee I buy. I'm considering purchasing raw beans and having a go at roasting them in the oven.

I'm a coffee snob.

Re:Yep, still bitter...

[CrashNBrn]

If your coffee grinder costs less than a few thousand, you are just a coffee-snob-wannabe.

So ...

[cascadingstylesheet]

... why do I like decaf?

It tastes bad...

[RhettLivingston]

therefore it is doing something.

In general, I think this falls into our "no pain, no gain" prejudice. People routinely feel more like they are doing something worthwhile to solve a problem when the something they are doing is unpleasant in some fashion - be it exercise, diet, medicine, work, etc.

Re: Alternative

[Archangel Michael]

Why ruin Gin with Tonic? That's Gross.

Gin straight over ice, maybe with a dash of lemon.