Cilantro-soap perception

Will cilantro taste like soap to them?

A SNP near the OR6A2 olfactory receptor (rs72921001) explains a meaningful chunk of why some people taste cilantro as soap. Pick each parent's ancestry and whether they get the soapy taste, and we'll estimate the odds for your kid.

Mom's ancestry
e.g. British, Irish, German, Italian, French, etc.
Does mom taste cilantro as soapy?
Dad's ancestry
e.g. British, Irish, German, Italian, French, etc.
Does dad taste cilantro as soapy?
Chance cilantro tastes like soap
10%vs. 13.0% population baseline
Your kid almost certainly will not taste cilantro as soapy.
Likely genotype at rs72921001
CC — both copies of the soap variant3.2%
~80% taste soap
CT — one copy (heterozygous)29.5%
~18% taste soap
TT — neither copy67.2%
~3% taste soap

For parents of european and european ancestry, the C-allele of rs72921001 shows up in roughly 18% of chromosomes — and the soapy-taste phenotype shows up in about 13.0% of people. Your number bakes in both parents' reported phenotypes via a Bayesian update on their genotype, then runs a Punnett-square inheritance step.

How accurate is this, honestly?aboutOne SNP
AccuracyOne SNP

Cilantro perception is influenced by more than this one variant. rs72921001 near OR6A2 is the strongest single signal we know about, but other olfactory receptor genes contribute, and non-genetic factors matter a lot — how the cilantro is prepared (heat reduces aldehydes), what it's paired with, and prior exposure all shift perception over time.

What we do: combine population allele frequency for each parent's ancestry with their reported phenotype to estimate genotype posteriors, then propagate Mendelian inheritance to the child.

What we don't do: claim certainty, treat ancestry as destiny, or pretend a single SNP is the whole story. Source: Eriksson et al. 2012, Flavour 1:22 — "A genetic variant near olfactory receptor genes influences cilantro preference"; doi:10.1186/2044-7248-1-22.

Read the full methodology →
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WILL THEY
🌿
Cilantro-soap chance
10%
vs. 13% population baseline
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