Whether you prefer drinking tea or coffee may come down to your genes.
University of Queensland researchers studied the relationship between taste receptor genes and tea and coffee consumption in over 430,000 men and women. People taste bitter flavours like caffeine, quinine and an artificial substance called propylthiouracil differently according to the types of taste receptor genes they have.
Participants with gene variants that made them taste caffeine more strongly were 20 percent more likely than the average person to be heavy coffee drinkers. These caffeine super-tasters were less likely to drink tea as people who are better at detecting caffeine are more prone to becoming addicted to its stimulant effects, and coffee contains more caffeine than tea.
Participants with gene variants that made them more sensitive to the tastes of quinine and propylthiouracil were 4 and 9 per cent more likely than the average person to be heavy tea drinkers respectively. They were also less likely to drink coffee. This may be because super-tasters of quinine and propylthiouracil – both more bitter than caffeine – are more sensitive to bitter tastes overall. They may find the intense bitterness of coffee overwhelming and prefer the gentler bitterness of tea.
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