Science
How does taste work?
Taste works by sensors on your tongue detecting chemicals in food and sending signals to your brain. Taste buds pick up five basic tastes — sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami — while smell adds most of the flavor you actually experience.
See it in motion.
Watch a 2-minute animated lesson that shows exactly how taste works.
Step by step
- 1Taste buds on the tongue hold chemical-sensing cells.
- 2They detect five basic tastes: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami.
- 3Each sends nerve signals to the brain, which identifies the taste.
- 4Smell contributes most of what we call 'flavor.'
- 5Taste evolved to seek nutrients and avoid toxins.
Frequently asked questions
- What are the basic tastes?
- Sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami (savory); everything else we 'taste' is mostly smell combined with these.
- Why does food taste bland with a cold?
- A stuffy nose blocks smell, which provides most of flavor, so food tastes flat even though basic taste still works.
- Why are we born liking sweet and disliking bitter?
- Sweetness signals energy-rich food, while bitterness often warns of toxins, so these preferences helped our ancestors survive.