Try this article on "supertasters" - people that have more taste bud formations on their tongues.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbo...ertaster.shtml
Also, there are a trained elite of sensory people that do sensory testing for everything from jelly beans to coffee to carpet. This link is to the company recently quoted in the book "Blink: The power of thinking without thinking." These trained folks can not only taste the difference between Pepsi and Coke, but can break the differences down to 40+ points of difference and describe them exactly.
http://www.sensoryspectrum.com/
One, yes, there are people that are born with more taste buds and can pick up on flavors that some people can't.
Two, this discriminating skill can also be learned through rigorous training. I believe the training program (which has an apprrentice-master structure for the comapny listed above) has a minimum two year course.
Three, perfect pitch is something that can be easily measured because sounds can be recreated exactly, then a person can be tested to see how close their perception is that standard.
Is there a standard to tasting flavors? Isn't that a little more subjective?
Hmm...
Sara
