I love coriander. I didn't like it when I first encountered it and if pressed would have probably adopted any negative description of it.
I doubt I would have described it as soap-like[herbalessence] or stink buggy without being "primed" though.
I don't know where you get your stink bugs from, maybe stink bugs vary around the world[daftpunk]?
I'm not disputing the genetic thing here, by the way. It's just interesting in general and in how knowledge of the fact changes how people talk about taste[sense].
When people like the flavour, they can generally just do so. You can say "I like coriander" without justification, but "I hate coriander" is a statement that requires justification (apparently).
Wikipedia's explanation tells me that the flavour of coriander is actually -- chemically -- like soap in some sense, it's just that there's a genetic variation that determines if you like that or not. Citation needed, of course.
Maybe the flavour of coriander is actually like soap. And the people who like coriander are simply the people who like soap? Anyone who denies the similarity between the two is lying because they don't want to be seen as a soap-muncher.
Soap-muncher.
[herbalessence] Which soap anyway? As I'm sure you know, most "soap" today isn't what people called "soap" decades ago. Maybe some people even have coriander scented soap.
[daftpunk] All the stink bugs I know live along the eastern coast of Australia.
[sense] Taste here means both what food tastes like and general having of preferences with or without reasoning.