Nurturing natural super tasters

In the movie Trading Places, Eddie Murphy and Dan Ackroyd’s characters — a street hustler and managing director respectively — are the subject of a wager by a bunch of rich old men about whether excellence and achievement are outcomes of genetic selection or environmental factors. To make a long story short and needless to say, the lads cottoned on to the wager and foiled the experiment. It made me think of people who seem to be able to taste flavours others can’t — and how they got this ability. Are they born that way or is it an acquired skill?

Super tasters have been identified as having millions more taste buds and have a very low threshold for flavour detection. They make up about 25% of the population and are dominated by women, Asians and Africans. The other 50% of us are medium tasters, the rest blissful ‘non-tasters’. All this is determined by genes and is the subject of a lot of research.
Super tasters taste salty, bitter, sweet and ‘fatty’ flavours at very low levels. While we may think this is a great thing, their lives can be a misery because they taste flavours at such low levels they tend to eat bland food like macaroni cheese and avoid cakes, dessert wine and some vegetables like broccoli and brussels sprouts (understandable).
But this ‘super’ ability to taste bitter flavours affects the degree to which they enjoy wine. Imagine that, misery indeed. They tend to be slimmer than the rest of us (okay, that’s nice), but the joy of a symphony of flavours dancing on the tongue can never be theirs. In fact, they can suffer from ‘hot tongue’ because their perception of flavour is so intense.
So how do some seem to nail obscure, weird and subtle flavours? I think the answer lies firmly in the art of smelling and olfactory perception, memory, command of your language and exposure to different things — both smelly and edible. And life.
Like a painting, this ability starts with a clean palate. Generation Next (the ones after Y) have a tremendous life of flavour exploration ahead of them — their exposure to exotic and ethnic food, places and smells is already wide and impressive. Members of Generation Next buy sushi and bottled water and use soy sauce to add flavour to their soba noodles. We feasted on KFC, tomato sauce and Coke at the same age. They like green, white and herbal tea and explore coffees — we drank Milo and instant coffee. And this mob articulates flavours well.
I am the proud parent of members of this generation. I marvelled at the super taster ability last summer holidays when Marco, my son’s friend and a member of the said generation, visited. This 16-year-old smelled, tasted and considered the flavours of whatever I dished up, including some ‘mielie pap’ (South African maize meal porridge) which my family hates and a range of teas. He considered my African way of enjoying tea as being “almost as strong as eating a clod of earth”, mulled the flavour for about 10 minutes, then made a few suggestions about the brewing procedure. He articulated umami (savouriness) with ease and wants
to grow tea in his back yard.
My own son cooked the Christmas turkey from a recipe he found on the internet and knew what to add to please the family palate. I would like to think we parents can take credit for this — after all, we exposed them to a different life, didn’t we?
So you see, the real super tasters are blissful and accidental products of their environment. It is something that can be relearned by smelling and tasting everything and storing it in the memory banks.
I am in awe of their beautiful ability and marvel at their articulation and interest. My one great fear is their palates — driven by hormones and bravado — will be molested by RTDs and strong spirits. They will be fabulous tasters of wine and I wonder how they will influence and change styles and trends. My hope is they will drive New Zealand winemakers to produce more elegant and subdued flavours, demanding layers of subtlety in varietals such as marsanne and roussanne, riesling and pinot blanc, that they will blend.
My hope is that they will drink and sip more experimentally, not only from the specials rack at the local supermarket. I can’t wait for them to take the reigns from us so we can sit back, indulge and learn. In the meantime, I have the onerous task of steering them through the bumpy times in life and away from spirits and binge drinking, hoping they retain some of the virgin palate.

Erica Crawford is the marketing guru behind Kim Crawford Wines, a member of NZTE’s Beachheads Advisory Board and the Investment Committee of the University of Auckland Business School ‘s Entrepreneurs’ Challenge.