Taste
Taste is three-dimensional. You can measure the taste of something along one of three axes; these three axes are somewhat analogous to the three main kinds of chemical bonding – covalent, ionic, metallic.
The first axis is bitter-sweet. A bitter substance can be diluted until it tastes sweet; many organic compounds are like that, and conversely, many sweeteners are bitter in high concentration. Life is like that; too much sweet and you will taste bitterness, but how sweet the taste of good coffee!
The second axis is salt-sour. At the extremes of this axis lie ionic solutions, ions set free in a world of water. You will find that taking a very salty liquid provokes a similar response to taking a very sour one. But this axis scales to zero – if the liquid is very very faintly salty or sour, it quenches thirst better and makes you want to drink more.
The third axis is minty-meaty. At one end you will find peppermint and other sharp aromatic buzzers of the nose; at the other end you will find the taste of amino acid compounds – glutamate and his friends. At high concentrations, they taste metallic, like crystals of the smell of reacting metal.
It is always interesting to see how our little worlds of sense and sensation are so easily reduced to theory in few dimensions. Quite often though, while the numbers and bullet points are adequate description, they are unable to capture explanation or meaning.
You drink a soup of forest mushrooms: as the glutamates and aromatics intermingle, as the salt closes circuits in your tongue, you feel pleasure. But what kind of pleasure, and why does the aroma of mushroom make you feel comfortable and intelligent? The truth may lie in your past experiences, or in your present company, or in the future expectation of garlic bread. And you may know none of this, except that the soup is great.
The first axis is bitter-sweet. A bitter substance can be diluted until it tastes sweet; many organic compounds are like that, and conversely, many sweeteners are bitter in high concentration. Life is like that; too much sweet and you will taste bitterness, but how sweet the taste of good coffee!
The second axis is salt-sour. At the extremes of this axis lie ionic solutions, ions set free in a world of water. You will find that taking a very salty liquid provokes a similar response to taking a very sour one. But this axis scales to zero – if the liquid is very very faintly salty or sour, it quenches thirst better and makes you want to drink more.
The third axis is minty-meaty. At one end you will find peppermint and other sharp aromatic buzzers of the nose; at the other end you will find the taste of amino acid compounds – glutamate and his friends. At high concentrations, they taste metallic, like crystals of the smell of reacting metal.
It is always interesting to see how our little worlds of sense and sensation are so easily reduced to theory in few dimensions. Quite often though, while the numbers and bullet points are adequate description, they are unable to capture explanation or meaning.
You drink a soup of forest mushrooms: as the glutamates and aromatics intermingle, as the salt closes circuits in your tongue, you feel pleasure. But what kind of pleasure, and why does the aroma of mushroom make you feel comfortable and intelligent? The truth may lie in your past experiences, or in your present company, or in the future expectation of garlic bread. And you may know none of this, except that the soup is great.
Labels: Biochemistry, Experience, Taste
etched with acid at 4:07:00 pm
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