Love of black coffee, dark chocolate could be genetic

If you like your coffee black, it could be that your grandpa or your great-aunt did, too. A preference for black coffee and also for dark chocolate seems to lie in a person’s genes, scientists report. It’s not the taste that these individuals actually love, but it’s because their genes enable them to metabolize caffeine faster and they associate the bitter flavor with mental alertness. Dark chocolate also contains a small amount of caffeine but predominantly theobromine, a caffeine-related compound, which is also a psychostimulant. Benefits attributed to dark chocolate and two to three cups of black coffee per day include a lower risk of Parkinson’s disease, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and several types of cancer. The findings were published this month in Scientific Reports.