foolm0r0n posted...
There's clearly a spectrum since some people say they taste ZERO soap, which is crazy. To me, there's no question that it tastes like soap.
I also know people who gag when eating fish sauce, pickles, or broccoli, all of which I love. What's so special about cilantro that it needs a gene to explain distaste? I even have heard of people disliking mint because it tastes soapy (as in a common aroma associated with soap)
There's nothing special, there's just evidence:
https://flavourjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/2044-7248-1-22
There's a bunch of papers but here's one. Also: preference and detection may be driven by separate genes/gene complexes with some overlapping association. However, binding of the 'soapy' functions (a specific group of aldehydes) has been shown to be associated with a specific genetic variation in an olfactory receptor. It's a robust finding.