question about making Penang white coffee less sweet

About a month ago I started responding to this question but didn't get around to finishing. Now that I'm ready to post I can't find the thread but I had saved the quote. I think it touches on an interesting topic, so here's my answer, for whatever it's worth.

shorty wrote:We received a bag of Penang white coffee packets. I find the coffee too sweet. Anyone have any tips on how to make the coffee less sweet? I wonder if I need to brew extra coffee and add the Penang coffee mix instead of sugar.

Diluting out the sugar with more coffee seems like the most reasonable way to go. But how about another approach—fiddling with your taste buds to make them insensitive to sugar?

I learned of the fascinating substance gymnema at the Bev-O-Metrics lecture last summer. After the talk, Das passed out samples of the powdered leaf, which selectively blocks the ability to taste sweet. It's surprisingly quick and effective. The effect seems to be all-or-none and I'm not sure if you could titrate the dose to allow partial tasting (I'm not optimistic, but it could be worth a try).

If you'd like to make your Penang coffee not sweet at all, PM or email me and I'll get a little gymnema to you somehow.

Do you recall the name of the leaf? I often have an almost gag-reflex like reaction to overly sweet things (especially in the morning). I wonder if the substance would block it. I would like to experiment with doughnuts or other sweet pastries.

The way taste buds work is intriguing. For instance, adding a few drops of vinegar to grapefruit makes it taste downright sweet, and we have all tasted orange juice after brushing our teeth.

d4v3 wrote:Do you recall the name of the leaf? I often have an almost gag-reflex like reaction to overly sweet things (especially in the morning). I wonder if the substance would block it. I would like to experiment with doughnuts or other sweet pastries,

The substance is known as gymnema. It comes from the Gymnema sylvestre plant and the active compounds have been termed gymnemic acids. Lots of information (some possibly reliable) and sources for purchasing if you Google. PM me and I'll be happy to send you a small sample if you'd like to play around with it (it's a lot of fun). The stuff is surprisingly effective. I have a feeling you'll be shocked if you eat a glazed doughnut after some gymnema. It made me realize how important at least a low level of sweetness is for the enjoyment of most foods.