A byte to eat: will AI super-tasters disrupt food?

A tea bag is an extraordinary thing. Each small sachet contains a mix of leaves from different producers and different places. Hundreds of factors can affect the flavour of each leaf, from the amount of sunlight and rainfall to the type of soil it was grown in, how it was plucked and how it was dried. Yet when you drink a cup of your favourite brew, you expect it to taste exactly like the last one. Tetley, a British teamaker, boasts that its basic blend has had the same distinctive taste since the company was set up in 1822.