ACS ChemClub 2015 Virtual Party Resource Packet

Chemistry—Hacking Your Taste Buds

How to Taste

Student Handout

Taste is the sensation produced when chemicals react with taste receptor cells. Taste receptors are found on taste buds, and taste buds are mostly found on your tongue, the roof of your mouth, and the back of your throat. In essence, taste is chemical. Do you think all parts of your tongue will sense a taste similarly, or will some parts be more sensitive to a particular taste? Cleansing your palate between tests is also an important part of taste testing. It clears any residual substances left in your mouth, so the tastes don’t interfere with each other.

In this activity, you will first learn how to perform a taste test and one method of cleansing your palate in between taste tests. You will use these methods to taste the five different universal tastes.

Materials

  • Individual sugar packet
  • Individually wrapped Sour Patch Kids candy or Warheads candy
  • Individual salt packet (e.g., the kind given out at fast food restaurants)
  • Baking soda
  • Individual soy sauce packet
  • Five cotton swabs
  • No-salt saltine crackers (can scrape the salt off the crackers if only salted are available)
  • Drinking water and cup
  • Five napkins

Activity

This activity must be done in a food-safe environment rather than a chemistry laboratory, since participants will be eating and tasting food products. Students with food allergies should confirm they are able to safely perform this experiment with the foods used.

A. Performing a Taste Test

  1. Take an individual sugar packet and open it. Dip a clean cotton swab in water, then roll the wet swab in the sugar.
  2. Using the swab, touch the sugar to the tip of your tongue. What does it taste like? How intense is the taste?
  3. Touch the sugar to the sides of your tongue and taste again.
  4. Touch the sugar towards the back of your tongue and taste again.
  5. Dispose of the swab in a trash can.
  6. What single word would you use to describe the taste? Record your chosen word.

B. Cleansing Your Palate

  1. After testing a food, slowly chew a no-salt saltine cracker, but do not swallow it. Spit out the cracker into a napkin and dispose of in a trash can.
  2. Take a few sips of water until your tongue does not sense any of the food tested previously. Now you are ready for your next taste test.

C. Five Universal Tastes

  1. Repeat the taste test and palate cleansing procedures in Parts A and B for the remaining food items:
  • One Sour Patch Kids candy or Warheads candy (rub swab over surface of candy)
  • Salt packet
  • Baking soda
  • Soy sauce packet

Questions

  1. Did all parts of your tongue sense each of the five taste similarly, or were some parts more sensitive than others with a particular taste?
  2. What five words did you use to describe the five products you tasted?
  3. The five universal tastes are salty, sour, umami (sometimes described as “savory”), bitter, and sweet. Did your words match with the words typically used to describe the tastes?

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Lab–Student: Taste, pg