Experiment: how does taste work?

Are you curious about how your sense of taste works? If so, here’s a fun experiment to try with your friends or family.

Preparation
Get a scarf, nose clip, and a few dark-colored glasses or bottles. You’ll also need to buy drinks with different tastes, like bitter, salty, sweet, and sour. Ask another person to prepare the drinks secretly to keep it a surprise.

Tasting
Secure the nose clip and place the scarf over your eyes. Then, ask the person who made the drinks to give them to you one at a time. Take a sip and try to identify what each drink tastes like. Concentrate on the sensations on your tongue. Is it difficult to name what you’re drinking without seeing or smelling it?

Continue the experiment to see which areas of your tongue react more intensely to specific flavors. Take off the scarf and nose clip and get some toothpicks. Dip the toothpick in one of the drinks and place it on different parts of your tongue. Are some flavors more pronounced on certain parts of your tongue?

Explanation
Your tongue has thousands of taste buds that detect flavors and send your brain messages about what it tastes. Your nose also picks up smells and sends signals to your brain. Your eyes can also impact how you perceive taste.