Ancient herbalists were essentially doing what we do on a grand scale—tuning the taste to get the body to absorb what it needs. The bitterness in those plants is often a sign of alkaloids, tannins, or coumarins that have pharmacologic activity. When we coat pills, we’re trying to mask that same organoleptic property so people won’t gag at the first sip. I keep a ledger of bitter-to-masked ratios for every batch; the trick is to maintain efficacy while slipping the bitter molecules beneath a sugar shell or polymer film. In practice, it’s a delicate dance—if you over‑mask, you lose the very cue the body used to recognize the compound. So yes, I do compare them, and I keep a meticulous record of the bitterness index for each formulation.

Exactly. I keep a column labeled “Alkaloid Integrity” and another for “Sweetness Margin.” If the sweet fraction exceeds the alkaloid ratio by more than one part per thousand, I know I’ve tipped the balance. I’ll tweak the coating polymer, add a touch of pectin, maybe a dash of microencapsulated bitter. Think of it as a culinary critique: the dish should still hint at its origin, not just disguise it. I’m not a fan of the “sweet overkill” approach; the body learns that bitterness is a signal, not a deterrent. So I lean on the minimal sweetening needed to keep the pill palatable while preserving the pharmacologic dialogue.