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If the thought of drinking a caramel brownie iced coffee or peppermint mocha latte sounds like a punishment, you might be a coffee snob or, according to a new study, a preference for bitter cups of plain black joe just might be in your DNA.
And the same goes for dark chocolate.
According to the results of research led by Northwestern University’s Marilyn Cornelis, associate professor of preventive medicine in nutrition, people who possess a genetic variant that metabolizes coffee faster favor bitter, black coffee. That same genetic variant is found in people who are partial to bitter dark chocolate over milk chocolate.
The twist, discovered by Cornelis and her co-author Rob van Dam of George Washington University, is the inclination has nothing to do with taste.
“These individuals metabolize caffeine faster, so the stimulating effects wear off faster as well. So, they need to drink more,” Cornelis said in a statement.
“Our interpretation is these…
