I've been wondering for a while now if I might have that gene or whether Cilantro is just a herb i dislike. I can stomach dishes with cilantro in them, but it just stings through everything. No matter how little was put in, it tastes to me like somebody over-cilantro'd the dish. I've never eaten anything where I thought "Mmmh, yes, there's a subtle hint of cilantro" - it's always "Oh, there's the cilantro, and it's just too strong".

But whenever I read about this online, people say that it tastes like soap. It's been a couple of years since I was toddler enough to just put soap in my mouth. But in my mind, the taste of soap is mostly bitter, with an overwhelming tropical/fruity/citrussy flavor of whatever the producers decided to make the soap smell like. I also imagine it having a really unpleasant texture/mouthfeel. I have no urge to try eating soap, just so I can compare it with the taste of a herb. And I assume that most people with the Cilantro-gene also haven't made an actual taste-comparison. So hence my question: In what way does anything - but cilantro in particular - taste like soap?

It doesn't taste soapy to me, but more like bug spray that I accidentally got in my mouth as a kid. Weirdly chemically

Coffee tastes exactly like hot wet loam to me. I detested the flavor.

I'm a grown ass man, and I fucking hate coffee.

It is a chemical aftertaste. Like a weak soap or maybe even an unscented air freshener. I can eat the food if there isn't much cilantro in it.

Keep in mind, just because it doesn't taste like soap to you, doesn't mean you should like it. People have their own unique tastes. I, for instance, don't like most fish, and think that describing a thing as what it is - means it's bad - is a weird thing: "this fish is fishy" = gross. "This chicken is chickeny" = delicious.

All that said, you just don't like cilantro, that's fine. My wife doesn't like strawberries. I can't understand it, but I accept it.

As a kid, my mother actually did the completely stupid cliche of "washing your mouth out with soap" when I said a "bad word", so I know exactly what soap tastes like (this being cheap bar soap like Irish Spring, Zest, etc). And cilantro really does taste pretty close to that to me.

While we're at it, wtf do ants smell like?

Take the smell of dawn dish soap diluted into water. That's what it tastes like.

Formic acid

I hate cilantro but I'm unsure if I have the supposed "cilantro tastes like soap gene". To me, it just feels like chunks of cardboard or plastic in my food that shouldn't be there. I tried it two or three times then stopped using it in my cooking. However, I like storebought salsa that contains cilantro so apparently I don't mind it if it's cut into really tiny pieces

Soap tastes like cilantro on account of the simple fact that cilantro existed first. Not the other way around. If you're going to eat soap some people say it tastes like cilantro.

Irish spring for me. It got in and around my molars and I tasted that for hours.

Citronella, for some.

It tastes like metal to me - not soap

thats so fucked up. sorry you went through that abuse.

Yep, same here, once it was between your teeth you were not getting rid of that taste for a long while.

Nobody should be forced to eat cilantro

lol