{"id":406,"date":"2018-11-15T21:33:56","date_gmt":"2018-11-15T22:33:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tightrope-walk.com\/?p=406"},"modified":"2023-09-07T16:14:43","modified_gmt":"2023-09-07T16:14:43","slug":"a-bitter-buzz-the-psychology-behind-our-love-of-coffee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tightrope-walk.com\/index.php\/2018\/11\/15\/a-bitter-buzz-the-psychology-behind-our-love-of-coffee\/","title":{"rendered":"A Bitter Buzz: The Psychology Behind Our Love of Coffee"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<div data-shortcode=\"caption\" id=\"attachment_11230\" style=\"width: 1068px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11230\" loading=\"lazy\" data-attachment-id=\"11230\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/nationalcoffee.blog\/2018\/11\/15\/a-bitter-buzz-the-psychology-behind-our-love-of-coffee\/nca_web_social_coffee_drop_crop\/\" data-orig-file=\"http:\/\/tightrope-walk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/nca_web_social_coffee_drop_crop.png\" data-orig-size=\"1058,523\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{\" aperture=\"\" class=\"lazyload\"><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-11230\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A new study found that coffee drinkers are actually more sensitive to the bitter taste of caffeine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Coffee is a complex beverage \u2013 and it\u2019s experienced differently by everyone.<\/p>\n<p>Your appreciation (or not) of coffee is largely <a href=\"https:\/\/nationalcoffee.blog\/2018\/11\/05\/is-caffeine-in-your-genes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">driven by genetics<\/a>, which control a host of factors raging from your caffeine tolerance to sensory perception.<\/p>\n<p>A new\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41598-018-34713-z\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">study<\/a> from Northwestern University, recently published in <em>Scientific Reports<\/em>, found that coffee lovers aren\u2019t less sensitive to the bitter taste of coffee \u2013 instead, the opposite is true.<\/p>\n<p>This suggests an interesting psychological phenomenon behind our love of coffee.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-11228\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" data-attachment-id=\"11229\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/nationalcoffee.blog\/2018\/11\/15\/a-bitter-buzz-the-psychology-behind-our-love-of-coffee\/limitless-coffee\/\" data-orig-file=\"http:\/\/tightrope-walk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/limitless-coffee.gif\" data-orig-size=\"1080,720\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{\" aperture=\"\" class=\"lazyload\"><\/p>\n<p>People with genes indicating high sensitivity to quinine and propylthiouracil tended to drink less coffee on average, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/alicegwalton\/2018\/11\/15\/the-strange-psychology-of-why-we-love-the-taste-of-coffee\/#52c7117378e2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Forbes<\/em><\/a> reports.<\/p>\n<p>But humans generally have a genetic \u201cinborn aversion towards bitterness,\u201d to stop us from eating\u00a0 poisonous food.\u00a0So why do we keep refilling our cups?<\/p>\n<p>Researchers suggest a psychological phenomenon: \u201cIt is possible that coffee consumers acquire a taste for (or an ability to detect) caffeine given the learned positive reinforcement (i.e. stimulation) elicited by caffeine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This means that coffee is literally an acquired taste, driven by our Pavlovian response associating the bitterness to the subsequent energy boost over time.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read more: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/alicegwalton\/2018\/11\/15\/the-strange-psychology-of-why-we-love-the-taste-of-coffee\/#364f6d6078e2\">The Funny Psychology Of Why We Love The Taste Of Coffee<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Related: <a href=\"https:\/\/nationalcoffee.blog\/2018\/11\/05\/is-caffeine-in-your-genes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Is Caffeine In Your Genes?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Gif via <a href=\"https:\/\/giphy.com\/gifs\/loop-cinemagraph-cinemagraphe-MQiUudEZd8wBq\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Giphy<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new study found that coffee drinkers are actually more sensitive to the bitter taste [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":408,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tightrope-walk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tightrope-walk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tightrope-walk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tightrope-walk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tightrope-walk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/tightrope-walk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":411,"href":"http:\/\/tightrope-walk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406\/revisions\/411"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tightrope-walk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tightrope-walk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tightrope-walk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tightrope-walk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}