It's amazing that people can have such different tastes. I absolutely hate the taste of black licorice.
Though the act of poisoning yourself and others for fun is an extremely normalized behavior, and has been for thousands of years. We just call it drinking (alcohol).
Liquorice is one of those things like cilantro that's highly polarizing. You either love it or you deeply, passionately despise it. I too would tend to assume there's a genetic component, though I don't know.
It does make for a convenient economy of people who will eat the black jellybeans from others' bags :)
> An acquired taste ... You have to learn to like it.
Why? it tastes inedible, repulsive and vile to me. I'm happy for your tastes, but people tend to either like licorice from an early age, or never do. The preference seems strongly innate, not "acquired". Why put myself through something horrid that my body does not want and never will?
I wonder if it is like cilantro. It tastes like soap to me, but my wife loves it. Apparently there is a physiological reason for that. Maybe it is similar with black licorice.
Growing up in the USA, my impression was that licorice is one of the most popular candy flavors among children. As an adult, I was surprised to discover that every Korean and Japanese I offered licorice to reacted violently to the taste...wouldn't even try to be polite about it. I doubt it's genetic, so I've often wondered what about their diet predisposes them to have such a negative taste sensation.
Why doubt it so much? "It's genetic" would be the simplest explanation why the preference so fixed and polarising. And also why it's concentrated in some geographic regions.
It's amazing that people can have such different tastes. I absolutely hate the taste of black licorice.
Though the act of poisoning yourself and others for fun is an extremely normalized behavior, and has been for thousands of years. We just call it drinking (alcohol).