Maybe you were getting a different kind of plaintain. But most likely, your palate is adjusted to a high sugar content. I have a friend who says the same thing about the plantains I get, he says to him they're just like unripe bananas. But he is quite a sugar junkie and can't even taste the slight sweetness in ripe tomatoes or bell peppers. He only enjoys fruits that are packed with sugar. When all your body is looking for is sugar, your palate will play tricks on you and tell you that something that's very flavorful really has no flavor because there's less sugar in it than you were expecting. The same thing happens to people who are heavy salt eaters and are suddenly given a meal that's only lightly salted.
To me the plantains I get are way more flavorful than any regular bananas, even if the bananas are very unripe and thus have less sugar content in them. The only variety that is about as flavorful is an organic cavendish cultivar I get where the fruits are very, very small and are allowed to ripen naturally, just like plantains, without the use of chemicals, which all other regular cavendish bananas have.
Btw, I don't eat bananas or plantains when they are fully ripe, but only about half way through. With the plantains I get, as with that small cavendish organic banana cultivar I get, it's easy to see, because the skin turns from green when unripe and pure starch, to yellow when they're about half starch and half sugar, to black when it's fully ripe and it's all turned to sugar. I eat them when they're yellow. If I'm forced to eat regular bananas, they usually come in a greenish yellow tone, where they're about right to eat, and turn from that to yellow, where it's already too much sugar, to yellow with brown spots where they become a sugar bomb. Even my sugar junkie friend will not eat them when they have brown spots.
