If you’re referring to the taste, it’s because the process of us tasting salty water isn’t that different from us tasting salt.
Our taste buds have little receptors that detect molecules of different shapes. There are receptors for sodium and chloride ions. When we eat salt, it dissolves in our saliva, and we taste the ions. When we drink salt water, we still just taste the ions. There aren’t receptors for dry un-dissolved salt crystals, to my knowledge.
> If so why is water salty?
We taste Na+, *not salt*.
> shouldn’t it no longer be chemically salt?
It’s not, it’s aqueous sodium ions and chloride ions, i.e. an electrolyte. If you mix two salts, e.g. salt and KBr in water and dry it, you get a mess of all four possible ccombination when it crystalizes.
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