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Some of you may taste #coriander 
(or #cilantro for my 
friends) and think it tastes delicious. But for some of us, it tastes super soapy 
. But why do some people hate the taste of coriander? #Thread [1/#]
[Image - Pixabay]
![Some of you may taste #coriander (or #cilantro for my friends) and think it tastes delicious. But for some of us, it tastes super soapy . But why do some people hate the taste of coriander? #Thread [1/#][Image - Pixabay]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EX-ZcMMWoAA_YmO.jpg "Some of you may taste #coriander (or #cilantro for my friends) and think it tastes delicious. But for some of us, it tastes super soapy . But why do some people hate the taste of coriander? #Thread [1/#][Image - Pixabay]")
(or #cilantro for my friends) and think it tastes delicious. But for some of us, it tastes super soapy . But why do some people hate the taste of coriander? #Thread [1/#][Image - Pixabay]
Let’s start off by talking a little bit about taste in humans. Most of our ‘taste’ actually comes from our sense of #smell (loosing your sense of smell will result a loss of taste!). In fact, there are only a few true tastes - sweet, unami, bitter, sour [2/#]
[Image - Pixabay]
![Let’s start off by talking a little bit about taste in humans. Most of our ‘taste’ actually comes from our sense of #smell (loosing your sense of smell will result a loss of taste!). In fact, there are only a few true tastes - sweet, unami, bitter, sour [2/#][Image - Pixabay]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EX-Z8vTXgAASw_k.jpg "Let’s start off by talking a little bit about taste in humans. Most of our ‘taste’ actually comes from our sense of #smell (loosing your sense of smell will result a loss of taste!). In fact, there are only a few true tastes - sweet, unami, bitter, sour [2/#][Image - Pixabay]")
[Image - Pixabay]
So why is this important? Well taste involves protein known as taste receptors or TRs and smell uses proteins known as olfactory receptors or ORs. When thinking about coriander ‘taste’ we are actually talking about a smell, so we only need to focus on the ORs 
[3/#]
[3/#]
ORs in humans are a type of protein known as GPCRs (for the biochemists out there 
). This isn’t super important to know, it is just a really big family of proteins found in humans and we understand them pretty well. [4/#]
[Image – GPCR, rhodospin – PDB 1F88]
![ORs in humans are a type of protein known as GPCRs (for the biochemists out there ). This isn’t super important to know, it is just a really big family of proteins found in humans and we understand them pretty well. [4/#][Image – GPCR, rhodospin – PDB 1F88]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EX-ath9XsAU0z34.jpg "ORs in humans are a type of protein known as GPCRs (for the biochemists out there ). This isn’t super important to know, it is just a really big family of proteins found in humans and we understand them pretty well. [4/#][Image – GPCR, rhodospin – PDB 1F88]")
). This isn’t super important to know, it is just a really big family of proteins found in humans and we understand them pretty well. [4/#][Image – GPCR, rhodospin – PDB 1F88]
Humans have a diverse range of ORs and these each respond to specific chemicals that cause smells. Actually processing that smell relies on combinations of different receptors being activated – like a secret code for our brain 
. Pretty cool! [5/#]
. Pretty cool! [5/#]
The specific smell from #coriander that some people don't like is not really known, but it is thought to be the same as the horrible smell that stink bugs emit! Large scale genetic studies helped to unravel what was going on here.... [6/#]
[Image - Stink Bug - Pixabay]
![The specific smell from #coriander that some people don't like is not really known, but it is thought to be the same as the horrible smell that stink bugs emit! Large scale genetic studies helped to unravel what was going on here.... [6/#][Image - Stink Bug - Pixabay]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EX-b0xQXsAABTih.jpg "The specific smell from #coriander that some people don't like is not really known, but it is thought to be the same as the horrible smell that stink bugs emit! Large scale genetic studies helped to unravel what was going on here.... [6/#][Image - Stink Bug - Pixabay]")
[Image - Stink Bug - Pixabay]
The DNA sequencing company 23andMe actually identified a mutation that is most likely to be responsible for the variation in how we taste/smell coriander. They found that a high proportion of people who disliked coriander had a mutation in OR6A2 – an olfactory receptor 
[7/#]
[7/#]
Why do I say most likely? Well there are other studies that identify other mutations that may be responsible, and knowing what we know about olfaction it could even be a combination of many mutations 
! [8/#]
! [8/#]
Personally, I hate the taste so I had a look at my 23andMe report and I have the variant they identified! As it is genetic, like many specific quirks of our sense of smell/taste, you may share this characteristic with family members ! [9/9]
