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The key to good taste lies in your genes rather than your tongue.

It has long been known that some people are more sensitive to the bitter taste of broccoli and Brussels sprouts.

And many believed this was because these 'super-tasters' have so many taste buds that their tongue is extra bumpy.

A study has disproved the long-held belief that people with 'bumpy' tongues are hyper-sensitive to taste

The theory has also been used to explain why some people don't like spicy food or why some children are picky eaters.

Now, a study has shown that having a bumpy tongue doesn't affect the ability to taste – at least where bitterness is concerned.

However, a person's genes are important, the journal Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience reports.

Researcher Nicole Garneau, of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science in US, made the connection after asking hundreds of museum visitors to stick out their tongues.

The bitter taste of broccoli can be detected by anyone regardless of how bumpy their tongue is

After rating their bumpiness, she checked the volunteers' sensitivity to bitter chemicals and analysed their DNA for genes involved in detecting sharp tastes.

She said: 'There is a long-held belief that if you stick out your tongue and look at the bumps on it, then you can predict how sensitive you are to strong tastes like bitterness in vegetables and strong sensations like spiciness.

'The commonly accepted theory has been that the more bumps you have, the more taste buds you have and therefore the more sensitive you are.

'No matter how we looked at the data, we couldn't replicate this long-held assumption.'