Children fall into three groups -- nontasters, regular tasters, and supertasters -- depending on how strongly they experience tastes  Supertasters strongly prefer mild cheddar cheese to sharp, regular tasters weakly prefer mild to sharp, and nontasters show no preference  Also, the more bitter a food tastes, the less children like it
Thus, supertasters experience sharp cheddar as tasting more bitter than mild cheddar, but nontasters experience sharp cheddar as tasting no more bitter than mild cheddar
Bitterness is the only factor relevant to how strongly children prefer sharp cheddar cheese to mild cheddar cheese.