Taste is a chemical sense, which means that, in the same way as with smell, it detects chemical compounds which are then transformed into taste perception. The difference lies in the fact that, while smell captures compounds in the gaseous state, taste works by trapping chemical compounds that are dissolved in a liquid. Three concepts will become clear by the end of this chapter. The first is that there are more than five basic tastes; the second is that a chemical compound can evoke several tastes. The third concept is a consequence of the first two: in normal day-to-day conditions there are no pure tastes. That is why a salt such as potassium bitartrate evokes a taste that is both sour and acidic. Although taste sensors are located throughout the oral cavity and even in the oesophagus, the tongue is the main gustatory organ thanks to the large number of taste buds it contains. These papillae are agglomerates of taste buds which, in turn, are made up of clusters of sensory cells. Taste is, therefore, a sense whose sensory organ is more complex than it seems. Unfortunately, this complexity is still evident during the stage of transmission of taste sensations to the brain and even in the functioning of the taste cortex. It reflects, in fact, the extreme importance that this sense has had during the evolution of all living beings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Taste is a chemical sense, which means that, in the same way as with smell, it detects chemical compounds which are then transformed into taste perception. The difference lies in the fact that, while smell captures compounds in the gaseous state, taste works by trapping chemical compounds that are dissolved in a liquid. Three concepts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":14093,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n