Station 1: Taste ability

In this experiment you need to taste and smell natural flavours, NaCl and a chemical called 6-n-
propylthiouracil (PROP), which are placed in cups or bottles at each of the lab desks. Basically you
will sip and spit out each of the solutions, with or without nose clips in place, and rate each on
intensity on specially constructed scales. For the smell portion you will be sniffing bottles of the
solutions, and rating the intensity of these as well. Please do not make the observations out loud
until the experiment is over. You may influence your colleagues’ answers. Be aware it is perfectly
normal to have reactions to these taste that differ from other people’s reactions. People differ in
their ability to taste PROP. This ability depends primarily of the number of taste buds a person has.
Because the taste buds carried on the fungiform papillae of the tongue, the more papillae you have
the stronger the sensation from this chemical. At the end of this experiment we will demonstrate
the fungiform papillae on the tongues of people who are classified as non-tasters [of PROP],
medium, and super-tasters. Observe the differences among these tongues.