eli5: why does water that has sat in a metal water bottle for 1 day taste like metal, but water that sat in a plastic bottle for 1 year doesn’t taste taste plastic?

Question

eli5: why does water that has sat in a metal water bottle for 1 day taste like metal, but water that sat in a plastic bottle for 1 year doesn’t taste taste plastic?

In: 1

Answer 1

It’s hard to explain this without mentioning ions and the way that taste buds work. Basically- sour taste is sensed by an ion of hydrogen, table salt (NaCl aka sodium chloride) is made of a metal ion and a non-metal ion. Plastic bottles may be leaching stuff into your water just the same as the metal bottle is, but your taste buds are not made to taste the plastic “stuff”

Tldr

You lick metal, you taste metal. You lick plastic, you taste nothing.