Yet in developing superior tasting abilities - just like most life skills - genetics loses to training. Every. Single.Time.
Congratulations, you have successfully completed your Supertaster® test! You may be surprised by the scores you received for certain categories, but that’s the point. This test was designed to push your tastebuds to the limit to show your areas of improvement. Tastes can be difficult to differentiate between, especially when our palettes are bombarded with 25 samples of pure taste in one sitting. That is why Sensapure has created a training program to help you exercise and improve your tasting skills.
As you will see on your report card you were tested in two main categories. One, how well you can distinguish the five taste categories from one another. And two, how well you can rank the five levels of concentration within each taste category. We have found that only 30% of our testers scored a perfect 100 in distinguishing the five tastes. That may seem low, but it is a high percentage compared to the 0% of testers who successfully ranked all 25 concentration levels.
Don’t be discouraged. Improving taste and understanding the different categories is something everyone can work towards and is a lifelong process. Our tastebuds change over time, and thus requires constant training. Our training program is a good steppingstone to help you improve your tasting skills. Together, with your report card and specialized training kit, you are well on your way to becoming your own Supertaster.
The most common taste mistake is misidentifying umami as salty and occasionally bitter. Umami is a difficult taste to identify because it is rarely isolated. Most people have experienced pure salt, pure sugar, or pure vinegar, but how many of us have regularly experienced pure MSG? Not many. Soy sauce is the perfect example. Despite the taste of soy sauce being predominantly umami, when asked to describe it most people would say it’s salty. The same goes for tomatoes which are often described as sweet, or green tea being described as bitter.
Understanding the physical reaction we have to umami is the first step in distinguishing this taste from salty and bitter. One of the main differences is that umami is mouthwatering, coats your tongue, and makes you salivate. Salty, on the other hand, has more of a drying effect in the mouth, and bitter can cause your tongue to curl in on itself.
Another distinction between umami and the other tastes is how long it lingers. Umami is the longest lingering taste out of the five and can be a key detail used to determine what you are tasting. The next time you taste soy sauce, pay attention to the lingering flavor you experience after the saltiness dissipates. That’s umami.
Now that you have a better understanding of umami, it’s time to start your taster training.
You will be tasting three different forms of pure umami. The goal of this exercise is to find the similarities between the different types of umami so when you taste it in a product you can recognize how your mouth processes that taste. Follow the steps below to begin this exercise.
Prep Your Samples: Umami
Mix each sample with 16oz of water.
(Sample 1) (Sample 2) (Sample 3)
1.1 Taste Sample 1, MSG, and concentrate on how it feels on your tongue and walls of your mouth, and how long the taste lingers. While you taste this sample, ask yourself the following questions:
Once you have an idea of the taste and texture, eat an unsalted cracker, and move to the next step.
1.2 Taste Sample 2, I&G, and repeat the process from exercise 1.1.
1.3 Taste Sample 3, Dinodivm-5-Inosinate, and repeat the process from exercise 1.1.
Repeat this exercise two or three more times to familiarize yourself with the different tastes and sensations.
You will be tasting the three categories that are most misidentified with each other, umami, salty, and bitter. The goal of this exercise is to see how well you have familiarized yourself with umami, and if you can spot the difference from similar tastes. Follow the steps below to begin this exercise.
Prep Your Samples: Umami
Mix each sample with 16oz of water.
(Sample 1) (Sample 2) (Sample 3)
2.1 Taste Sample 1, MSG, and focus on what you are experiencing, how it feels in your mouth, what it tastes like, and how long it lingers. Once you are familiar with the taste, eat an unsalted cracker and continue to step 2.2.
2.2 Taste Sample 2, Sodium Chloride, and focus on what you are experiencing, how it feels in your mouth, what it tastes like, and how long it lingers. Once you are familiar with the taste, eat an unsalted cracker and continue to step 2.3.
2.3 Taste Sample 3, Caffeine, and focus on what you are experiencing, how it feels in your mouth, what it tastes like, and how long it lingers.
2.4 Once you have tasted all three samples, ask yourself the following questions that will help you determine which sample belongs to each taste category:
Repeat this process two or three more times to familiarize yourself with the different tastes and sensations.
PRO TIP: Umami deals a lot with aftertastes and aftereffects, so pay attention to what you are experiencing once the initial taste ebbs.
This taste category can seem deceptively easy on the surface because we all know when something is sweet. Most of us have tasted pure sugar, bit into a chocolate chip cookie, or eaten a spoonful of ice cream. Sweetness is everywhere, so much so that you might consider yourself an expert at identifying it as a taste. That is precisely why we designed our supertaster test the way we did. Our test is meant to saturate your palate with five pure samples of each of the five tastes to force your tastebuds to hunt for that relief sweetness can bring.
A high concentration of sweet can be easy to differentiate from a high concentration of bitter. But what about a low concentration of sweet compared to a low concentration of umami after several high concentrations of bitter? Now that’s trickier.
Improving your ability to identify sweet as a taste category is about so much more than just being able to say, “yes this sugar cookie is sweet”. Instead, we are here to help you learn to identify taste within a sea of other flavors so even when your palate is bombarded with other strong tastes, you are capable of slicing through those sensations and find the sweet taste.
Sweetness is known as the pleasure taste, it’s the easiest to consume, and enjoyable to experience. By focusing on how our mouths react to tasting a sweet sample can be a good indicator of its category. Like umami that coats the whole mouth, sweetness primarily coats the tongue without making our mouths water. If you are unsure if the sample is sweet or umami, focus on how much of your mouth is being coated by the taste. Your entire mouth is coated? Most likely that’s umami. Your tongue is coated but your mouth isn’t watering? Most likely that’s sweet.
Another indicator that what you are tasting is sweet is how long it remains on your tongue. Sweetness doesn’t last very long which can make it difficult to identify while experiencing other flavors simultaneously. When trying the samples pay attention to how long you experience the sensation for. If you notice the flavor dissipates after a few seconds, you have your answer.
Are you ready to test your palate? Refer to the chart below to begin the tasting portion of your training.
You will be tasting two forms of sweeteners. The goal of this exercise is to find the similarities between the different types of sweeteners so when you taste it in a product you can recognize how your mouth processes that taste. Follow the steps below to begin this exercise.
Prep Your Samples: Sweet
Mix each sample with 16oz of water.
(Sample 1) (Sample 2)
1.1 Taste Sample 1, Cane Sugar, and concentrate on how it feels on our tongue and walls of your mouth, and how long the taste lingers. While you taste this sample, ask yourself the following questions:
Once you have an idea of the taste and texture, eat an unsalted cracker, and move to the next step.
1.2 Taste Sample 2, Sucralose, and repeat the process from exercise 1.1.
Repeat this exercise two or three more times to familiarize yourself with the different tastes and sensations.
You will be tasting low level concentrations of 4 taste categories and will not be eating crackers between the samples. The purpose of this is to confuse your tongue with tastes and force you to focus on the textures of each sample. Follow the steps below to begin this exercise.
Prep Your Samples: Sweet
Mix each sample with 16oz of water.
(Sample 1) (Sample 2) (Sample 3) (Sample 4)
2.1 Taste Sample 1, MSG, and focus on what you are experiencing, how it feels in your mouth, what it tastes like, and how long it lingers. Once you are familiar with the taste, continue to step 2.2.
2.2 Taste Sample 2, Citric Acid, and focus on what you are experiencing, how it feels in your mouth, what it tastes like, and how long it lingers. Once you are familiar with the taste continue to step 2.3.
2.3 Taste Sample 3, Caffeine, and focus on what you are experiencing, how it feels in your mouth, what it tastes like, and how long it lingers. Once you are familiar with the taste continue to step 2.4.
2.4 Taste Sample 4, Cane Sugar, and focus on what you are experiencing, how it feels in your mouth, what it tastes like, and how long it lingers.
2.5 Once you have tasted all four samples, ask yourself the following questions that will help you determine which sample belongs to each taste category:
Repeat this process two or three more times to familiarize yourself with the different tastes and sensations.
It’s no secret humans love salt. Sodium is a necessity in our diets, yes, but we have become so accustomed to eating it that the average American will eat on average more than 3,400mg a day (recommended use on average is 2,300mg per day). There are many reasons why salt is such a high use product aside from our bodies needing it in our diet. It’s a food preservative, and enhances flavors like sweet, and sour. Salt also suppresses flavors like bitterness which is why it is better to put salt instead of sugar on grapefruits, to suppress the bitter notes. At higher concentrations salt can even suppress sweetness while umami is unaffected, which is why we heavily salt meats and poultry. Yet, despite all of that, 7 out of 10 people misidentify salty for umami or bitter.
By learning how our mouths react to tasting salt we can improve our ability to distinguish this from the other tastes. Salt is an astringent, can dry out the mouth, or at the very least it won’t make your mouth water. It also doesn’t cause your mouth and tongue to pucker the way sour and bitter do.
While umami is the longest lasting taste of all five, salt isn’t too far behind. Notice how many times you swallow; it may be difficult to try and wash your mouth out of the flavor that lingers. You may even smack your lips to get rid of the sensation faster.
Time to see how well you are at identifying salty. Refer to the chart below to begin the tasting portion of your training.
You will be tasting three different forms of salt. The goal of this exercise is to find the similarities between the different types of salt so when you taste it in a product you can recognize how your mouth processes that taste. Follow the steps below to begin this exercise.
Prep Your Samples: Salty
Mix each sample with 16oz of water.
(Sample 1) (Sample 2) (Sample 3)
1.1 Taste Sample 1, Sodium Chloride, and concentrate on how it feels on our tongue and walls of your mouth, and how long the taste lingers. While you taste this sample, ask yourself the following questions:
Once you have an idea of the taste and texture, eat an unsalted cracker, and move to the next step.
1.2 Taste Sample 2, Potassium Chloride, and repeat the process from exercise 1.1.
1.3 Taste Sample 3, Calcium Chloride, and repeat the process from exercise 1.1.
Repeat this exercise two or three more times to familiarize yourself with the different tastes and sensations.
You will be tasting the three categories that are most misidentified with each other, umami, salty, and bitter. Compare umami against salty and bitter to see how well you can spot the difference.
Prep Your Samples: Salty
Mix each sample with 16oz of water.
(Sample 1) (Sample 2) (Sample 3)
2.1 Taste Sample 1, MSG, and focus on what you are experiencing, how it feels in your mouth, what it tastes like, and how long it lingers. Once you are familiar with the taste, eat an unsalted cracker and continue to step 2.2.
2.2 Taste Sample 2, Sodium Chloride, and focus on what you are experiencing, how it feels in your mouth, what it tastes like, and how long it lingers. Once you are familiar with the taste, eat an unsalted cracker and continue to step 2.3.
2.3 Taste Sample 3, Caffeine, and focus on what you are experiencing, how it feels in your mouth, what it tastes like, and how long it lingers.
2.4 As you taste the three samples, ask yourself the following questions to help determine which sample belongs to each taste category,
Repeat this process two or three more times to familiarize yourself with the different tastes and sensations.
For an additional challenge, taste salty first then umami back-to-back without cleansing your palate with crackers. Initially, it might seem that they taste the same because umami acts as an enhancer to our perception of salty.
However, if you focus on the textures and the amount of time the sensations linger you will notice the differences.
Of the five tastes we are most sensitive to bitter. Even in small quantities people can detect when something has a bitter taste. Why then is it so difficult to differentiate bitter from the other taste categories, specifically salt and umami? One reason for this is that we often experience bitter with other flavor sensations, specifically salt. Salt acts as a bitter suppressor and is often used to help counteract bitter tastes in foods.
By learning how our mouths react when experiencing a bitter taste, we can learn to identify that sensation in our food even if we might think we are tasting something salty. Bitter is a very sharp taste and can cause the tongue to recoil from it. It wants to curl in on itself. It’s not a mouth-watering taste either which is why it’s easy to misidentify this taste with salt that has a similar drying effect. The best way to train your palette to identify bitter is to simply taste a lot of bitter things and focus on how your mouth responds to the tastes.
Time to see how well you are at identifying bitter. Refer to the chart below to begin the tasting portion of your training.
You will be tasting two different forms of bitter. The goal of this exercise is to find the similarities between the different types of bitter so when you taste it in a product you can recognize how your mouth processes that taste. Follow the steps below to begin this exercise.
Prep Your Samples: Bitter
Mix each sample with 16oz of water.
(Sample 1) (Sample 2)
1.1 Taste Sample 1, Quinine, and concentrate on how it feels on our tongue and walls of your mouth, and how long the taste lingers. While you taste this sample, ask yourself the following questions:
Once you have an idea of the taste and texture, eat an unsalted cracker, and move to the next step.
1.2 Taste Sample 2, Caffeine, and repeat the process from exercise 1.1.
Repeat this exercise two or three more times to familiarize yourself with the different tastes and sensations.
You will be tasting the three categories that are most misidentified with each other, umami, salty, and bitter. Compare umami against salty and bitter to see how well you can spot the difference. Follow the steps below to begin this exercise.
Prep Your Samples: Bitter
Mix each sample with 16oz of water.
(Sample 1) (Sample 2) (Sample 3)
2.1 Taste Sample 1, MSG, and focus on what you are experiencing, how it feels in your mouth, what it tastes like, and how long it lingers. Once you are familiar with the taste, continue to step 2.2.
2.2 Taste Sample 2, Sodium Chloride, and focus on what you are experiencing, how it feels in your mouth, what it tastes like, and how long it lingers. Once you are familiar with the taste continue to step 2.3.
2.3 Taste Sample 3, Caffeine, and focus on what you are experiencing, how it feels in your mouth, what it tastes like, and how long it lingers.
2.4 As you taste the three samples, ask yourself the following questions to help determine which sample belongs to each taste category,
Repeat this process two or three more times to familiarize yourself with the different tastes and sensations.
For an additional challenge, taste salty first then bitter back-to-back without cleansing your palate with crackers. Initially, it might seem that they taste the same because salt acts as a suppressor to our perception of bitter. However, if you focus on the textures and the amount of time the sensations linger you will notice the differences.
Our final taste, sour, is how we perceive acids. Now, when something is extremely sour, like lemons, we know right away what we are experiencing. But what about when something has a lower concentration of acids? It becomes more difficult to discern the taste.
It’s theorized that we have evolved to taste sour to alert our bodies when something has spoiled, like sour milk. As a result, one of the key indicators that we are tasting something sour is how much our mouth waters. It's our body’s way of attempting to wash the flavor out. A way to test if the sample you are tasting is sour is to eat an unsalted cracker before tasting to dry out your mouth. If, when you taste the sample, your mouth begins watering around the back of your throat and tongue, odds are you are tasting something sour.
Another indicator of when something is sour is it makes your lips pucker. Pay attention to how your lips react to the taste. Even if your perception of the sample tastes like it is sweet, or salty, your body will still react to the acids.
Time to see how well you are at identifying sour. Refer to the chart below to begin the tasting portion of your training.
You will be tasting three different forms of sour. The goal of this exercise is to find the similarities between the different types of sours so when you taste it in a product you can recognize how your mouth processes that taste. Follow the steps below to begin this exercise
Prep Your Samples: Sour
Mix each sample with 16oz of water.
(Sample 1) (Sample 2) (Sample 3)
1.1 Taste Sample 1, Tartaric Acid, and concentrate on how it feels on our tongue and walls of your mouth, and how long the taste lingers. While you taste this sample, ask yourself the following questions:
Once you have an idea of the taste and texture, eat an unsalted cracker, and move to the next step.
1.2 Taste Sample 2, Malic Acid, and repeat the process from exercise 1.1.
1.3 Taste Sample 3, Citric Acid, and repeat the process from exercise 1.1.
Repeat this exercise two or three more times to familiarize yourself with the different tastes and sensations.
You will be tasting three categories that can be deceiving at certain dosages, umami, sour, and sweet. Compare sour, to umami, and sweet, to see how well you can spot the difference. Follow the steps below to begin this exercise.
Prep Your Samples: Sour
Mix each sample with 16oz of water.
(Sample 1) (Sample 2) (Sample 3)
2.1 Taste Sample 1, MSG, and focus on what you are experiencing, how it feels in your mouth, what it tastes like, and how long it lingers. Once you are familiar with the taste, eat an unsalted cracker and continue to step 2.2.
2.2 Taste Sample 2, Citric Acid, and focus on what you are experiencing, how it feels in your mouth, what it tastes like, and how long it lingers. Once you are familiar with the taste, eat an unsalted cracker and continue to step 2.3.
2.3 Taste Sample 3, Cane Sugar, and focus on what you are experiencing, how it feels in your mouth, what it tastes like, and how long it lingers.
2.4 As you taste the three samples, ask yourself the following questions to help determine which sample belongs to each taste category:
Repeat this process two or three more times to familiarize yourself with the different tastes and sensations.
PRO TIP: If you focus on the textures and the amount of time the sensations linger you will notice the differences.
Congratulations on making it to the end of our Supertaster reference guide! Our training exercises aren’t easy and were designed to challenge you and showcase your areas of improvement. Our taste buds are constantly evolving, our sensitivity to taste diminishes over time, and our preferences can change which makes becoming a Supertaster a lifelong process. We are here to help you on your journey, and support you as you strive to become your own Supertaster.
