Does Drinking Tea Change the Palate?

Pictured below is a pasta salad. I'm a big salad person. One of my ex-girlfriends liked to refer to an "Alex Salad"...which could be based on anything from pasta to rice to seafood, to just vegetables, just fruit, or some combination...but never containing any lettuce. These diverse salads all had a distinct character based on my own preferences and palate, which has developed in strange ways over the years.

This pasta salad is typical: pasta, feta cheese, beans, cucumber, red pepper, onions. What you can't see as easily are the seasonings and dressing: fresh spearmint, orange mint, ground coriander, olive oil, and a dash of sambal oelek (a type of Chili paste that is one of my favorites). No salt is added (not even in cooking the pasta) other than that in the sambal oelek and the feta cheese.

Not everyone likes my salads, although when people like them, they usually love them. They are frequently described as "strange" or "different". But people also remark that I tend to eat (and prepare) relatively healthy foods.



I did not like foods like this when I was younger. As a child, I was an embarassingly picky eater. I only came to develop a taste for food like this over time.

What in the world does this have to do with tea?

Lahikmajoe pointed out in his recent blog post that I like to talk about how drinking tea can develop the palate. I think that the simple act of drinking tea changes the way you perceive tastes. Tea is an acquired taste, for the simple fact that it is bitter, and also for the important quality that it is, in most cases, more aromatic than it is flavorful. Pictured below is a basic cup of black tea, brewed from a teabag, the brand of which shall remain unnamed:



It was a decent cup of tea, but nothing special. But I think that drinking even decent, somewhat generic tea on a regular basis changes the palate. I think this is especially true if we drink the tea unsweetened. Humans have a natural propensity to be cautious with bitter foods: many poisons are bitter, and our taste of bitterness serves to help us avoid poisoning in our natural environment. But over time, if a bitter food or drink makes us feel well and not ill, we will come to enjoy it. This is the very essence of an acquired taste.

Going back to the salad ingredients:

Mint, like tea, is a bitter, aromatic plant. The two plants have much in common, and it is no coincidence they are frequently blended, as in Moroccan Mint Tea. But most seasonings, spices, and herbs are similarly bitter and aromatic. Most of these spices are acquired tastes. Even the onions, a vegetable ingredient in the salad, can be seen as a flavoring, and share the bitter, aromatic qualities of the other spices and herbs.

Interestingly, nearly all of these seasonings have health benefits. These benefits vary widely from spice to spice, and range from antioxidants to antibacterial, antifungal, and even antiviral activity, to stress-reducing properties, and properties positively affecting the absorption of various minerals and nutrients. Lately I've been working a lot on the RateTea page on mint tea, and I've been pleased to find that mint has a myriad of health benefits--great news because I love it and use it frequently both in cooking and to make herbal tea, but the other spices used in the salad also have their benefits.

Also of note is the absence of any sweetener or added salt in the salad. Acquiring tastes isn't just about including ingredients but is also about omitting them.

Another way tea can improve health?

Perhaps the health benefits of tea are not limited to the chemicals in the tea itself...but rather, extend to the fact that drinking tea develops our palate to prefer bitter, aromatic ingredients such as herbs and spices, which ultimately improve our health in a number of ways.

This development of palate is of particular importance in the United States of America, where many of us have been conditioned to prefer bland food, devoid of spices, sweet, devoid of bitterness and aromas...heavily processed, full of empty calories. Salt is the one flavor that is often included, and many Americans have a diet that is too high in salt.

Tea is the very antithesis of this bland, unhealthy food culture. Tea is bitter, aromatic, and contains very little to no sweet or salty tastes. Tea provides a means to train the palate to prefer healthy foods, a way to break out of our homogenized, industrialized food culture and return to our roots--a food culture of rich aromas, healthy doses of bitter herbs and seasonings, and fresh, healthy ingredients. This is closely related to the main premises of the slow food movement, which is another interesting, and related topic that I hope to explore more in the future.

So drink up!