Who Wins the Taste Battle?
Give someone a choice between a chocolate cake and some bitter gourd curry, and chances are they pick the confection without hesitation. While the cake might receive appreciative nods, the curry will probably elicit disapproving looks, or even far worse.
Taste is a complex science and defines our reactions to different foods. It also defines how food manufacturers create their products and reach consumers. As people open up to newer flavours and experiences, their tastes evolve to accommodate more ideas. In the debate of taste vs flavours, understanding the nuances between the two becomes essential. We’ll go over what these tastes actually are and break the science down over why the cake won that contest.
What Are the Five Basic Tastes?
As an evolutionary response, taste—alongside smell—has helped humans survive by sensing chemicals in the environment. Over millions of years, this has helped us interpret stale food and stay clear of things that might be poisonous.
In the modern world, food ingredients and beverage solution suppliers like us at Symega need to properly understand how taste works and how to help customers determine the suitable profiles for their products, whether culinary solutions or savoury spice. (Call it a guess, but a bitter banana bread might not really fly off the shelves.) Getting this right involves dissecting the science behind taste.
There are five basic tastes that humans can distinguish. These are detected by a series of reactions on the tongue that send taste perception information to the brain. The entire tongue can perceive all tastes, with the sides more sensitive than the middle.
So, what are the five basic tastes detected by taste buds?
Taste #1: Sweet
The sweet taste is due to the sugars (glucose, lactose, and artificial sweeteners) in food and drinks, and sometimes alcohols and amino acids. The taste indicates energy-rich foods and represents calorific intake, but tasting too much of it isn’t healthy. The taste is rewarding and loved universally. It evokes a pleasant sensation and can be comforting for many, which is why items like cakes, ice cream, and other desserts are so popular.
Taste #2: Sour
When food tastes sour, there’s a high chance it has acids in it. Think citrus fruits or vinegar, and the resulting flinch when you have either in large quantities. Speaking of which, the taste helps people identify spoiled food due to the development of acids by bacterial action. Small doses of the taste can be tangy and refreshing—imagine the opposite of sweet but just as pleasant.
Taste #3: Salty
Sodium chloride leaves a distinctive taste on people’s palates, and just like sourness, this particular taste is enjoyable in tiny quantities. And just like consuming items that taste sweet, it’s harmful to have too much of it. The taste is central to most dishes, instantly turning bland food appetising and enhancing flavour. For example, a pinch of salt to soup can improve the perception of product thickness and improve flavour intensity.
Taste #4: Bitter
The bitter taste evokes a strong response. It is wholly unpleasant and caused by several substances—commonly described by the taste of coffee, leafy greens, and cocoa. The taste is possibly an evolutionary trait stemming from when people needed to recognise poisonous plants, most of which were bitter. Some people learn to appreciate the taste in small quantities, finding an appreciation for things like dark chocolate and broccoli over time.
Taste #5: Umami
The answer to the question ‘Which is the newest of the five basic tastes to be discovered?’ happens to be the taste of glutamate. Known as ‘umami’, the taste is linked to protein. It’s like the taste of a savoury meat broth that can’t be described by any of the other four tastes. Umami can be sensed in food like mushrooms, meat, and tomatoes, often defining Eastern cuisine thanks to the use of MSG (monosodium glutamate).
The Science Behind Taste Perception
Tasting something comprises complex chemistry. Beginning with the tongue and involving the central nervous system, how we perceive different tastes is intricately designed and measured. When chemical compounds in food meet the tongue, they activate the nerve cells by altering specific proteins in the walls of the sensory cells. This leads to the release of chemical signals, which activate other nerve cells that send information to the brain on what taste to feel.
Interestingly, the impact of food colour also plays a significant role in how we perceive taste. Bright or visually appealing colours can enhance the expectation and experience of taste, even before the food is consumed.Nearly half of the sensory cells react to most of the five basic tastes, varying only in sensitivity levels. The rest of the sensory cells react to only one taste, relaying information on the intensity of the taste. The tastes and their intensity, with the sense of smell and the texture of the food, can give rise to thousands of different flavour sensations!
Can There Be More Than Five Tastes?
The science community has been trying to answer this question with no real consensus beyond the five basic tastes. We’re always searching for specialised sensory cells that can identify additional tastes if they exist. And some research indicates that ‘fatty’ could be the sixth taste. Simultaneously, research over ‘metallic’ and ‘watery’ as potential tastes could unlock new possibilities in the field of taste science.
Is Spicy One of the Five Basic Tastes?
People often wonder if ‘spicy’ falls under one of the five basic tastes examples. Some consider it as a taste of its own, but this is technically untrue. Taste is linked to the taste buds on the tongue, which send signals to the brain indicating which of the five basic tastes is being savoured. Spiciness, on the other hand, is a result of the brain being sent a pain signal by the nerves related to temperature and touch. This is due to capsaicin, a molecule found in chillis. So, essentially, ‘spicy’ is the brain responding as it would to a potential toxin.
Taste Is a Powerful Thing
While there’s still some back and forth over whether spicy makes the list, there’s no denying taste is such a significant part of our daily lives. Even without realising it. As the gateway to sensing the very essence of a dish, there’s no questioning its role in the food industry. Understanding flavour is equally important, as it goes beyond just taste to include aroma, texture, and even visual appeal. If manufacturers are to win customers over, they’ve got to make products that taste good and are calibrated carefully. Even bitter items, in the proper context, can sell. Knowing how to leverage taste, well, tastefully, can help manufacturers in a big way. Lean into the various tastes and make your ideas stand out. Even sour kheer could be something to consider in the future!
FAQs
Salty indicates food with a high sodium content, whereas umami indicates a high-protein food. While the regions of the tongue most sensitive to these two tastes are the same, the tastes have different taste transduction (the sequence of events involved in converting the detection of chemical molecules into taste signals).
‘Spicy’ is not one of the five tastes. Taste comes from taste buds on the tongue, but the sensation of spiciness is due to nerves related to temperature and touch sending a pain signal to the brain. The brain responds as it would to a potential toxin, numbing the tongue. The molecule capsaicin found in chillis is responsible for tricking your brain into thinking this way.
There are signs that evolutionary selection is why bitterness is disliked, as we needed to avoid several bitter plants that were toxic or poisonous. Not being fond of bitter food is a survival technique—things that are harmful to us often tend to taste unpleasant.
