Supertaster Test – Check your Sense of Taste

If you are a so-called supertaster, you probably experience the sense of taste with far greater intensity than the average person – especially when it comes to the taste of bitterness.

Do you find grapefruit extremely bitter? Are you a picky eater? Or do you have to add milk and sugar to your coffee to reduce the bitter taste? If so, you may be a supertaster.

You can test if you are a supertaster in several ways. You can buy taste kits, which normally consists of small strips with a bitter chemical on it.

But you can easily test your tastebuds without the taste kits, just by looking at your tongue and examine the number of taste buds.

How many taste buds you have, varies from person to person. The more taste buds, the more likely is it, that you’re a supertaster.

All you need to make a simple supertaster test is the following:

• a piece of paper or plastic with a standard notebook hole in it
• maybe some blue food-color (not necessary).

If you dye the tip of your tongue with a blue food-color dissolved in water, your taste buds will really stand out, and it is easier to count them. But it is not necessary.

Here’s what you do
1. Place the paper/plastic sheet on the front part of your tongue, where you have many taste buds.
2. Count the number of taste buds in the hole.

Depending on the amount of taste buds, people are divided into three groups:

> 30 Taste buds: Supertaster
15-30 Taste buds: Average taster
< 15 Taste buds: Non-taster

If you have more than 30 taste buds in the small notebook hole, you can call yourself a supertaster!

If you have less than 30, you are either an average taster like most people or a so-called non-taster. Being a non-taster doesn’t mean that you can’t taste anything. But probably most foods will taste bland for you, and you love spicy food or food with lots of taste.

On average it is estimated that around 25-30 percent of people are supertasters, 40-50 percent are average tasters and 25-30 percent are non-tasters.