Expert: Florence M Rollwagen - 6/12/2008

Question
Do we share the same sense of taste as we share the same taste bud?

Will food taste the same if we put the same food in two people mouth? Do we taste the same as each other?

I am quite worry about it...and quite perturb by it...Is it possible for is it possible that the food taste different in different tongue?

why is this so? is it common? pls help...

Answer
Hi Rambo, thanks for your questions.

The sense of taste is limited to the tongue, which can taste only four (sometimes five) sensations: salt, bitter, sweet, sour.  There is a fifth sense (umami) from the Japanese which is the sensation for pickled foods.

The actual sense that we call "taste" occurs in the nose, and is the sense of smell.  About 80-90% if what we taste is actually smell.  Just think of how food tastes when you have a bad cold.  Without your sense of smell, you can't taste anything.

What you're asking about the same food in different people's mouths has to do with perception, memory and other feelings about the taste of food.  These questions are more suited to philosophy or psychology than biology.

I suspect that the tastes of salt, bitter, sweet and sour are universal, but whether people "like" different foods because of different perceptions in taste is more psychology than biology.

FM Rollwagen, PhD