The other day I started noticing this awful bitter taste in the back of my mouth. At first I thought I'd somehow inhaled some of my sunscreen (yah, I know, not so smart) and a drink of water when I got home would take care of it. That didn't seem to work, so I figured brushing my teeth and giving my tongue a good scrub would make it go away. That didn't seem to work either.
So now I'm going through the list in my head-
Heavy metal poisoning?
Brain tumor?
Tongue leprosy?
Bubonic plague?
None of these sounded terribly plausible, but I am the girl who is allergic to the sun so I wouldn't have really put it past my body to pull some horrible trick like that. While I was contemplating my impending doom, Martijn says to me "Did you buy a different kind of coffee?" I told him I hadn't and he said "This tastes terrible. I'm having this horrible taste in the back of my mouth!"
Never being one to overreact, I think "OH NO, NEUROTOXINS ARE BEING RELEASED INTO THE AIR."
Martijn had a much less reasonable explanation- it was something we ate.
He did what any nerd would do. He googled it.
If you google "bittere smaak in mijn mond," (bitter taste in my mouth) the very first hit and the three following it are about pine nuts causing a nasty bitter and metallic taste at the back of the mouth! Apparently, this is not an uncommon occurance and it only happens with pine nuts that have come out of China. Since the about 99% of the pine nuts I've consumed came from local sources in Utah, it explained why I'd never heard of it. It lasts about 5 days in most people, but some of the lucky ones get to live with the nasty nasty taste for 3 weeks or more. We're on day 7 and it's just now subsiding!
As far as I can tell, there are no other ill effects from the Chinese pine nuts, but I can seriously recommend STAYING AWAY. Your tastebuds will thank you for it.
*Martijn thought I made up this word the first time I said it, but HE is the one that suggested I use it here.
