Flavours encoded in our genes - How genes impact what we enjoy eating
Isabella Taylor
2026-03-22
6 min. read
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Taste preferences can vary significantly - some individuals appreciate sweets and cannot forgo indulging in them, whereas others could do without them. Some delight in consuming roasted Brussels sprouts, while others view them with revulsion. A multitude of people value incorporating coriander into their meals, praising its fresh, citrusy flavour, yet there are those who can only detect a soapy aroma. Could it be that these differences stem from our genes?
Taste and olfactory sensations – an extraordinary collaboration
For many years, it has been taught that there are so-called tasting cups on the tongue, whose task is to recognize the four basic tastes: sweet, salty, sour and bitter. In reality, however, these receptors are not evenly distributed on the tongue. Each of them has the ability to perceive each of the five basic tastes. To date, no receptors have been found that perceive tastes such as metallic, fatty or kokumi, therefore they have not been recognized as basic tastes. Many tastes that are often referred to as spicy, minty, floral, smoky, herbal, etc. are not actually tastes, but aftertastes that are mainly perceived by another sense - smell. The smell signal can be picked up from outside (orthonasal smell) and from inside (retronasal smell). During eating and drinking, volatile molecules enter the nose from the mouth, allowing one to perceive many different tastes, more precisely aftertastes. The tasting cups are sensitive to temperature. At low temperature they function slightly worse, which is why the tastes are less intense.
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