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Basic Tastes
Appears in
By Paula Figoni
Published 2003
Basic tastes include sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami. These sensations are perceived on the tongue and throughout the mouth when taste chemicals (sugars, high-intensity sweeteners, salts, acids, caffeine, etc.) bind to receptor taste cells or change them in some way.
Taste cells are clustered on taste buds. Taste buds contain around a hundred taste cells apiece, each taste cell most sensitive to one of the basic tastes. While taste buds are scattered throughout the mouth, most are located on the tongue, hidden in crevices beneath certain papillae, which are small bumps on the tongue. Saliva, which is mostly water, is important to taste perception because it carries taste molecules (sugars, acids, salts, and bitter compounds) into these crevices and to the taste buds. Figure 4.4 illustrates the location of taste buds on the tongue.