Informant38

Coffee links from Sweet Maria The speaker, from Yale University, is Linda Bartoshuk, a specialist in human taste. She hands us each a small packet containing what looks like a Communion wafer. It's a piece of filter paper saturated with a compound called propylthiouracil, known in taste circles as PROP. We're instructed to put the papers in our mouths. As my saliva wets it, a nasty bitterness blooms. My neighbor, too, is making a face that says yuck. Then Bartoshuk asks for a show of hands. How many of us tasted something? How many of us didn't? Of course, Bartoshuk knows the punch line: Typically, a quarter of the audience tastes nothing. This routine never fails to impress an audience. Jaws go slack as hands shoot up in answer to both questions. How can something be tasteless to some people and so unpleasantly bitter to others?