Although all humans have taste buds , we do not all have the same number of them. Medium tasters typically have 10,000 taste buds. These "average tasters" make up about 50 percent of the world population. Nontasters , 25 percent of the population, have half the number of taste buds as medium tasters. The remaining 25 percent are supertasters. Supertasters have four to six times as many taste buds as nontasters and twice as many as medium tasters (see Figure 1). Research shows that supertasters are more likely to be women and from Asia, Africa, and South America.