How We Taste and Smell

Taste and smell are closely connected senses. Your tongue can detect five basic tastes: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami. Your nose can detect thousands of different smells. When you eat, both senses work together to create the full flavor of food.

How Taste Works

Your tongue is covered with tiny bumps called papillae. Inside these bumps are taste buds. Each taste bud has about 50 to 100 taste receptor cells. When food dissolves in your saliva, chemicals in the food touch the taste receptors. The receptors send signals to your brain that identify the taste.

How Smell Helps Taste

Your nose plays a huge role in how food tastes. When you chew, food releases tiny molecules that float up to smell receptors in your nose. Your brain combines the taste signals from your tongue with the smell signals from your nose. That is why food tastes bland when you have a stuffy nose.

Fun Facts

• You have about 10,000 taste buds on your tongue.
• Your nose can detect over one trillion different smells.
• Taste buds only last about 10 to 14 days before they are replaced with new ones.

Did You Know?

About 80 percent of what you think you taste actually comes from your sense of smell. Try holding your nose while eating a jelly bean. You will taste sweet but might not be able to tell the flavor!