You sometimes hear that taste has five dimensions (salty, sweet, bitter, sour, and umami). What does that really mean? Are these dimensions in the traditional sense?
When I think of dimensions, I think of how any possible “thing” can be described as a combination of the dimensions. For example, any point in a cartesian plane can be assigned X and Y, and any color can be described using a combination of red, green, and blue.
Does that mean any taste in the world can be described as a combination of these five dimensions? For example, can a mango, a Kit Kat, a tortilla, and milk all be uniquely described as a combination of salty, sweet, bitter, sour, and umami and nothing else?
In: Biology
Keep in mind that a very large portion of what you ‘taste’ if due to your sense of smell, which adds a great amount of complexity to the taste. That’s why nothing tastes good if you have a cold or your sinuses are blocked.
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