Quote Originally Posted by risabet
Your tastebuds reflect the combination of genes that you inherited from your parents. Our attitudes and beliefs have no influence on whether or not we can taste PTC, phenylthiocarbamide, which taste bitter to some and has no taste to others (a simple recessive/dominant trait), or whether or not sodium benzoate taste sweet, salty, bitter, or tasteless. Peoples choices and preferences for foods, whether they like or dislike them, are determined by a combination of factors, primarily genetic combinations that you can't control and cultural factors that can be learned or unlearned. Biology 101
Woodman's points stand, there is more than enough evidence about the validity of blind taste tests.
One has to look no further than the cola wars...Coca-Cola's own research on thousands of people determined that 7/10 people prefer Pepsi over Coke when taste is alone is the input. That was the fundamental driving force behind New Coke (still available in some States/Countries), which research suggested tastes even better, still.

Yet sighted tastes tests produce vastly different results.

I think this was more along the lines of what Woodman was getting at, other senses "interfere" with your perception of taste, and therefore can interfere with "the truth".