Bitterness, saltiness, sourness, and umami are the five basic tastes that our tounge's detect.
You have alot. Try counting yours. ;)
The five primary tastes that we can detect are sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. These tastes are detected by taste receptors on the tongue that bind to specific chemicals in food.
Sweetness was previously believed to reside only at the tip, however newer research shows that taste occurs for all five sensations over the entire surface of the tongue.
The newest of the five basic tastes to be discovered is umami, meaning a savoy taste. The other four tastes are sour, sweet, bitter and salty.
the tip is sweet, on the very back is bitter, sour is on the side, and salty on the edges. EDIT: Actually, that theory has been disproven a few years ago and it is now known that they are spread throughout the tongue
The tongue's receptors are taste buds. They are specialized to detect flavors, and are divided into two types, sweet and bitter receptors. They can detect perceptions of flavors in five types; salty, sweet, bitter, sour, and umani (savory).
Taste is detected by sensory receptors (chemoreceptors) in our taste buds, which cover the tongue but are also found in the soft palate of the mouth and the throat. The cranial nerves associated with taste are the glossopharyngeal (VII), facial (IX) and vagus (X) nerves. When the receptors in the taste buds are stimulated by food, impulses are sent along these nerves to the part of the brain where taste is perceived (in the parietal lobe) The area of the tongue which is thought to be most sensitive to sweet tastes is the tip.
Because that is the upper side of your tongue (the dorsal side), and all food and liquids pass over this surface, giving the taste receptors stimulation to your brain to register whatever tastes are present.
Taste occurs over the whole surface of the tongue. Certain areas of the tongue may be more sensitive to one of the five tastes humans can register: sweet, bitter, salt, sour, and savory (like garlic).
Taste buds contain the receptors for taste. They are located around the small structures on the upper surface of the tongue, soft palate, upper esophagus, the cheek, epiglottis, which are called papillae. These structures are involved in detecting the five (known) elements of taste perception: salty, sour, bitter, sweet, and umami. A popular myth assigns these different tastes to different regions of the tongue; in reality these tastes can be detected by any area of the tongue.
The five basic tastes are sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. Sweetness is associated with sugars, sourness with acidity, saltiness with salts, bitterness with alkaloids, and umami with glutamates. These tastes are detected by taste buds on the tongue.
Sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami (before also called savory) are the 5 basic taste sensation that are sensed by the taste buds in the tongue. However a great part of real taste perceptions are a combination with smell sensations from the nose. Also a certain part is psychologically determined.