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

[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

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,

Really?

[nospam007]

People who like bitter stuff drink bitter stuff?

Who would have thought?

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?

this is

[Presence Eternal]

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