Tasting the thresholds of perception

In every family, there’s always someone who, just after waking up in the morning, could give a worldwide broadcast conference on the major conflicts of the 1900s, and someone else who could spark a similar conflict over every light bulb turned on and every word heard. That’s how we humans are: it takes little to alert some of us, while for others, not even an earthquake is enough. It’s the same with tasting: some are more sensitive to bitterness, others much less; some can recognize that banana aroma in twenty different styles, while others, even after studying and searching for it, struggle to identify it even in a Bavarian Weizen. There are universally recognized minimum perception thresholds for many compounds in beers, but as this article explains, everyone can learn to recognize those to which they are more or less sensitive.