What are the 5 different types of taste?

The tongue has thousands of taste buds, but these receptors can recognize only five different basic tastes.

Bitter

Tasting something bitter can stop us eating harmful food. But some people enjoy bitter tastes, like coffee. Furthermore, there are cases where some bitterness could be healthy. Antioxidants, which aid in metabolism, account for the bitter taste in dark chocolate and coffee.

Dark chocolate shavings on top of your favorite holiday dessert could be a great addition to create a fun bitter flavor party.

Salty

This taste comes from sodium, which helps regulate muscle contractions, nerve signals, and keeping the right balance of water. As a flavor enhancer, adding salt to traditionally sweet dishes is necessary to amplify the sweet notes. A pinch of salt is core to most baked dessert recipes. Even if it is not listed in the ingredients, sprinkling some sea salt flakes or smoked salt over holiday ginger bread cookies brings out the sweetness of the sugar and enhances the ginger flavor.

Sour

Acidic foods, such as lemons and vinegar, taste sour. Humans are the only animals to enjoy sour food. The sour taste can also be obtained from foods soured through fermentation such as sauerkraut and yogurt, or through the addition of vinegar.

Many salad dressings feature vinegar as a key ingredient, which is a perfect way to add sour notes. You could also try adding lemon or orange zest to vinegar or even cream based dressings. Or, simply zest the top of your salad to help drive this craveable flavor sensation.

Sweet

Sweetness is naturally attractive as it indicates that presence of sugar, which provides a swift energy boost. Furthermore, when used in a combination, sweet complements well with the other basic tastes. Adding sweetness such as a drizzle of sweet balsamic glaze to a traditionally salty vegetable dish like roasted brussel sprouts would take it to the next level.

Umami

This is a mouth-watering savoury taste, found in foods such as grilled meat, mushrooms, or soy sauce.  In the early part of the 20th century, a Japanese chemist named Kikunae Ikeda attempted to identify this taste common to asparagus, tomatoes, cheese and meat. But, not one of the four well-known tastes could describe it adequately. What he pinpointed was the presence of glutamic acid, which he renamed “umami”, Japanese for “good flavor”. Though one of the core flavors of Eastern cuisine imparted by soy sauce and MSG (monosodium glutamate), it wasn’t accepted as a basic taste in the West until 1985.

 

Picture Credit : Google