Glossary

Taste

Taste is the perception produced or stimulated when a substance in the mouth reacts chemically with taste receptor cells located on taste buds in the oral cavity, mostly on the tongue. Taste, along with olfaction and trigeminal nerve stimulation (registering texture, pain, and temperature), determines flavors of food and other substances. A taste is how the taste buds experience the 5 taste types - sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami. Additional descriptors pungent, astringent and fatty also apply. A food is usually a blend of tastes, each in different concentrations.