Black licorice is just okay. I like actual licorice root, which incidentally has a different flavor than anise (although they're very similar, as is fennel).
But yeah it seems like way more people hate licorice than like it, and honestly for me it was a bit of an acquired taste. I was mostly ambivalent to it before I found out just how awesome licorice tea is for sore throats.
Real licorice also does crazy shit to your potassium levels. If you eat too much of it you can die due to losing so much potassium that your heart stops. At the same time, that makes it useful if you're taking spironolactone (a potassium-sparing diuretic that also happens to be an effective testosterone blocker) for its secondary effects and don't want to die from having so much potassium that your heart goes berserk.
