Are You a Supertaster?

weirdly accurate.

Are You a Supertaster?

Am I a supertaster?

Maybe, but a supertaster test that only counts the bumps on your tongue can’t settle it. In the lab, supertasters are people who find a bitter chemical called PROP intensely bitter. In a 2013 Wisconsin study of 2,371 adults, about a third rated it that strongly under the study’s cut-offs, and their tongues were no more crowded with taste bumps than anyone else’s. Bumps and bitterness are two different readings, and this test takes both.

First you paint the tip of your tongue with blue food colouring and press a piece of paper with a punched hole on it, the same 6 mm circle the researchers used. The tiny bumps called fungiform papillae stay pink while the rest turns blue; you count them in a mirror or a zoomed photo and tap a dot for each one. Your count is turned into a density per square centimetre and placed among those 2,371 adults. Then you rate six everyday foods, from black coffee to a sugar cube, as mild, strong or too much, and the result puts the two readings side by side.

It is not a medical test and not a lab-grade taster test: only a PROP test strip or a TAS2R38 gene test can say who is a supertaster in the researchers’ sense, and this page uses neither. Counting in a mirror is harder than the trained counters who worked from photos, a hole punch is only roughly 6 mm, and the six food questions are our own, with no population norm. A change in your sense of taste can have medical causes; if your taste has changed, talk to a doctor.

What the test measures

Two readings: how crowded the taste bumps on your tongue tip are, and how loud six everyday foods taste to you.

The task

  • The blue-dye method of the Beaver Dam Offspring Study (Fischer et al., 2013): dye the tongue tip blue and count the pink fungiform papillae inside a 6 mm circle, just to one side of the middle
  • Count by tapping a dot for each bump you see; drag to light several, and fine-tune with Less and More
  • Rate six foods as mild, strong or too much, or say you’ve never had them: black coffee, very dark chocolate, grapefruit, raw broccoli or kale, a fresh chili and a sugar cube
  • No dye at hand? Answer the food questions only, for a rougher guess

Your result

  • Your bump count, your density per cm² and the share of 2,371 adults whose tongues are less crowded than yours
  • Where you sit on the study’s curve, with the typical adult (about 29 bumps in the circle) and the top and bottom tenth marked
  • Your six foods averaged on a 0–100 scale; there is no norm for these questions, so they are not ranked
  • What your two readings say together, how people split by the PROP bitter strip and by the TAS2R38 gene, and reference points by age and sex
  • A shareable card and a link that challenges a friend to count theirs

Before you start

  • Four things: blue food colouring, a cotton bud, paper with one hole punched in it, and a mirror or your phone camera
  • Bright light helps; a close photo you can zoom into is easier than a mirror
  • Skip the dye if food colouring has ever given you a reaction; it stains clothes and lips for a while
  • About two minutes once you have the dye

Supertaster test FAQ

Is this test free? Do I need to sign up to see my result?

Yes, it’s free, and there’s nothing to sign up for: no account, no email, no payment. Your result appears on this page the moment you finish, and you can share it or play again straight away.

How do I know if I’m a supertaster?

The reliable way is a PROP bitter test strip rated on a scale, or a TAS2R38 gene test; counting the bumps on your tongue is only a rough guide. In Fischer et al.’s 2013 study of 2,371 adults and Garneau et al.’s 2014 study of 394 museum visitors, bump density did not predict how bitter PROP tasted. This supertaster test gives you both a bump count and a food reading, and says which one is weaker.

How many taste bumps are normal on the tip of the tongue?

In Fischer et al.’s 2013 study of 2,371 adults, a typical adult had about 29 fungiform papillae inside a 6 mm circle at the tongue tip, or about 103 per square centimetre. About one adult in ten had 17 or fewer, and one in ten more than 41. Women averaged slightly more than men, and younger adults more than older ones.

Does having more than 30 bumps make you a supertaster?

No. The popular home rule that more than 30 bumps in a punched hole means supertaster, as printed by Science Buddies and Scientific American in 2012, cites no study. In Fischer et al.’s sample of 2,371 adults, about half of all adults had that many.

How accurate is counting tongue bumps at home?

Less accurate than in a lab. Researchers photograph the dyed tongue and trained counters work from the photo; at home you count in a mirror or on your own picture, which is harder. A hole punch makes a hole of roughly 6 mm, so a larger or smaller hole shifts the count. A close, zoomed photo in bright light gets you nearer the study’s method.

What percentage of people are supertasters?

It depends on where researchers draw the lines. With Fischer et al.’s 2013 cut-offs on the PROP bitter strip, 32.0% of 2,371 adults were supertasters, 35.6% medium tasters and 32.4% non-tasters. The often-quoted 25 / 50 / 25 split is usually credited to Linda Bartoshuk’s lab, but it does not appear in the 1994 paper’s abstract, so treat it as a rule of thumb.

Is being a supertaster good or bad?

Neither. People who taste PROP as very bitter also tend to find Brussels sprouts, kale and asparagus more bitter (Dinehart et al., 2006). Yet in up to 438,870 UK Biobank adults studied by Ong et al. (2018), those whose genes made caffeine taste more bitter drank slightly more coffee, not less.

Is the supertaster test a medical test?

No. The supertaster test is a game built on published data, not a diagnosis, and it can’t tell you whether something is wrong with your sense of taste. Taste can change for medical reasons; if yours has changed, talk to a doctor. Skip the blue dye if food colouring has ever given you a reaction.

Where the numbers come from

Your share of adults compares your count, as a density per cm², with the 2,371 adults aged 21–84 in Fischer et al. (2013), using a normal curve with the study’s mean and SD because the paper publishes no percentile table. The six food questions have no norm and are not ranked. What you enter stays on your device; a challenge link carries only your count and your answer average, after the # in the address. The site does not publish its own players’ data.

How it is scored

Fungiform papillae density

The bumps you count in the 6 mm circle divided by its area (about 0.28 cm²), the same calculation as Fischer et al. (2013). Each bump carries a few taste buds.

Share of adults

The study reports a mean of 103.5 per cm² (SD 32.8) but no percentile table, so the test uses a normal curve with that mean and spread. Its 10th and 90th percentiles land on the two points the paper reports: about 60 and about 145 per cm².

Taste answers

Mild, strong and too much score 0, 1 and 2; the average of the foods you answered is shown on a 0–100 scale, with at least three answers needed. This is the site’s own summary, not a validated questionnaire.