Things are never simple. For generations, textbooks have stated there are four basic tastes — bitter, sweet, sour and salty. More recently there has been added a fifth taste, which is called umami from the Japanese word, umai, which means savory or meaty taste. We now know that there are more than five types of taste receptors, more than five ways a chemical can react with a receptor, and more than five types of neural codes those receptors send to the brain. Once in the brain, it can react to the “bitter pill” or develop a “sweet tooth.”

Taste is more than chemically reacting to salt or sweet. It’s also the intensity of the reaction, how salty or how sweet, and the mixture of those reactions.

About half of the sensory cells react to the five basic tastes, meaning that a particular cell might be more sensitive to sweet, followed by sour, salt and bitter, and another cell may have a different ranking. The other half react only to one taste and their job is to rate how intense the taste is, how salty or sour it is. Assuming five basic tastes and 10 levels of intensity — 100,000 different flavors are possible.