Eli5: Why do Adults generally enjoy bitter tasting things (ie. Coffee, beer, dark chocolate) when children rarely do?
In: Other
A lot of it comes down to what your body / mind associate with the food. Your subjective experience is more than just the raw data that your taste buds is sending to your brain. If you’re an adult who drinks coffee, your mind associates the taste of coffee with the boost in energy you get from the caffeine. If you drink beer or liquor, your body associates those tastes with the pleasurable feeling the alcohol they contain gives you. If you tried coffee or alcohol as a kid, or if you can remember the first time you tried either, you probably didn’t like it. Your body didn’t have the association with the taste / smells and the experience they cause. That’s why beer, liquor and coffee are usually “acquired tastes”.
*I don’t know if the same effect applies to other bitter things like dark chocolate as they don’t have a pleasurable effect associated with them. That’s probably for a different reason.
Edit: spelling, added * note
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