What are the five basic tastes?
The five basic tastes are sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami. Each is detected by special receptors in taste buds on the tongue and in the mouth.
Sweet tastes signal energy-rich sugars, salty tastes signal minerals the body needs, and umami signals protein. Sour tastes often come from acids, which can mean unripe or spoiled food, and bitter tastes can warn of toxins. These signals helped our ancestors decide what to eat.
Umami, a savory taste found in foods such as broth, cheese and mushrooms, was identified in Japan in 1908 but accepted widely in the West only after taste receptors for it were found in the early 2000s.
The tongue map myth
Old textbooks showed a tongue map with sweet at the tip and bitter at the back. This is wrong: all areas of the tongue with taste buds can detect all five tastes. Much of what we call flavor actually comes from smell.
Did You Know?
Scientists are studying possible additional basic tastes, including fat and a recently proposed sixth taste linked to ammonium chloride, the flavor of salty licorice.