Palate taxonomy v0.6: the six types, and how the lab classifies a palate
The six palate types now end in -morph, your answers decide your type, and matching reads the flavors you love. Here is the full method.
Update, October 15, 2026 (v0.8): every type is now a Sprout, a character with its own group, personality and reading: Sugar Bunny (sweet), Sour Fox (sour), Night Owl (dark and bitter), Crisp Deer (crunch), Honey Bear (soft and melty) and Party Penguin (a bit of everything). The streak became your tongue Big Three: your sun is your strongest reading, your moon your second, your rising your third, for 120 combinations. Codes changed to match (SF-2 is Sour Fox). Readings are for fun, like a horoscope: they come from your type, not from your photo. The method below is unchanged; existing reports were re-labelled automatically.
Update, October 14, 2026 (v0.7): the types have new names you can actually say out loud: Sugarhead (sweet), Zinger (sour), Cocoa Snob (dark and bitter), Snapper (crunch), Gooey (soft and melty) and Mixer (a bit of everything). Every report now also shows your streak, your second-strongest reading (“a Zinger with a crunchy streak”), and a 0–100 score for how strong your main reading is. Six types and five streaks make 30 combinations. The method below is unchanged; existing reports were re-labelled automatically.
1. What changed
Our first taxonomy (v0.4) gave each palate a playful name. In v0.5 each type was named for the reading that dominates its profile, with a short code you can compare with friends. In v0.6 the names move from -phile (“lover of”) to -morph (“form”): your palate isn’t something you love, it’s the form your taste takes.
| Code | v0.8 Sprout | v0.7 name | v0.6 name | v0.5 name | v0.4 name | Dominant reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SB-1 | Sugar Bunny | Sugarhead | Sucromorph | Sucrophile | Sugar Voltage | Sweet sensitivity |
| SF-2 | Sour Fox | Zinger | Acidomorph | Acidophile | Sour Outlier | Sour tolerance |
| NO-3 | Night Owl | Cocoa Snob | Amaromorph | Amarophile | Dark Matter Palate | Bitter tolerance |
| CD-4 | Crisp Deer | Snapper | Fractomorph | Fractophile | Crunch Architect | Crunch demand |
| HB-5 | Honey Bear | Gooey | Viscomorph | Viscophile | Velvet Melter | Melt preference |
| PP-6 | Party Penguin | Mixer | Polymorph | Polymodal | Chaos Palate | Chaos index |
2. Why the names changed
A type name should tell you what we found. The names combine a Latin or Greek root for the dominant reading with -morph, from the Greek morphē, “form.” In biology a morph is one distinct form within a species: same species, different shape. Every tongue is unique; the six morphs are the forms tongues tend to take. The codes are short enough to say out loud (“I’m an A-2”) and stay the same when names change.
3. The six types, explained
SB-1 Sugar Bunny
Sugar Bunnies are the Fluffle: a fluffle is what you call a group of rabbits.
Sweet is your strongest reading: your palate lights up early for sugar. Soft heart, sweet tooth, zero apologies.
SF-2 Sour Fox
Sour Foxes are the Skulk: a skulk is what you call a group of foxes.
Sour is your strongest reading: you have a high tolerance for citric and malic acid, and you like it. A little sour, a lot of fun.
NO-3 Night Owl
Night Owls are the Parliament: a parliament is what you call a group of owls.
Bitter is your strongest reading: dark chocolate, coffee and burnt sugar taste like depth to you, not a flaw. Dark chocolate, deep thoughts, late nights.
CD-4 Crisp Deer
Crisp Deer are the Herd: a herd is what you call a group of deer.
Crunch is your strongest reading: texture and the snap of the first bite matter most. Bright eyes, quick feet, loud crunch.
HB-5 Honey Bear
Honey Bears are the Sleuth: a sleuth is what you call a group of bears.
Melt is your strongest reading: you want slow, smooth candy like caramel, nougat and truffles. Soft, slow, and impossible not to hug.
PP-6 Party Penguin
Party Penguins are the Waddle: a waddle is what you call a group of penguins on land.
No single reading dominates: you want several tastes at once, sweet, sour, salty and spicy together. Sweet, sour, spicy, fizzy. All of it. At once.
4. How a palate is classified
The scan. Your phone or laptop analyzes a photo of your tongue on the device and reduces it to a handful of image summaries. From these, the model produces six readings from 0 to 100. We are candid about what this is: a designed experience inspired by real taste research, not a measurement of your taste receptors. Readings are stable for each person and vary by a few points between scans, the way a real instrument would. Nothing about the scan is medical or diagnostic.
Calibration. After the scan you answer seven quick questions: your perfect bite, the flavors you like, textures, how sour you like it, sugar, what you avoid, and budget. These are real signal, and they carry the most weight. Your answers pull the readings toward what you told us.
Your type. Your type is the reading that dominates after calibration, so your answers decide it. A stated dislike can never be your type: say “not at all” to sour and you won’t be a Sour Fox. When two readings tie, the scan breaks the tie.
Taster class and papillae index. These are playful labels inspired by research on supertasters and fungiform papillae (Bartoshuk et al., 1994; Hayes et al., 2008). The real relationship between papillae and taste is contested (Fischer et al., 2013).
Your candy. Your profile and answers are what we design your candy from: custom candy stacks, with your perfect candy plus a couple more to try. You can remix any of them or build your own in the Candy Lab. (Earlier versions scored compatibility with a single bar, Preview Model #01; that bar has been replaced by custom stacks.)
Candy matching. Once you’ve answered at least four questions, your answers outweigh the scan readings in matching. We filter out candies built around allergens or diets you avoid (always check the label), avoid recommending your known favorites, keep one “treat yourself” pick, and learn from your Love, Meh and Nope ratings.
5. What comes next
v1.0 replaces our lab-panel candy ratings with taster data: answers, favorites, ratings and the candies people choose. When enough tasters have contributed, we’ll recompute CandyBench and test whether any image features predict stated preferences. We’ll publish the result either way.
6. Limitations
- The scan is not a scientific instrument, and the type is a fun label, not a diagnosis.
- Calibration relies on what you tell us, and people are not always accurate about their own taste.
- Six types compress a lot of variation. Two Sour Foxes can still disagree about Warheads.
Changelog
- v0.8 · Oct 15, 2026 The Sprouts: six characters with groups, readings, best and chaotic matches; tongue Big Three (sun, moon, rising) replaces the streak; new codes.
- v0.7 · Oct 14, 2026 Plain-English names (Sugarhead, Zinger, Cocoa Snob, Snapper, Gooey, Mixer); streak (second-strongest reading) and 0–100 score on every report; candy quiz replaces the calibration questions; custom candy replaces store-bought matches.
- v0.6 · Sep 30, 2026 -morph names; answers decide your type (stated dislikes can’t be your type); “perfect bite” and “flavors you like” questions; matching reads flavor notes like caramel and nougat.
- v0.5 · Sep 28, 2026 New type names and codes; plain-English meanings on every report; calibration questions between scan and results; answer-weighted candy matching.
- v0.4 · Sep 27, 2026 First public preview: tongue scan, six readings, v0.4 type names, Preview Model #01 verdict.