On Wed, 10 Feb 2010 13:48:38 -0800, Ranee at Arabian Knits
> wrote:

>In article >,
> Doug Freyburger > wrote:
>
>> Sweet is also both a taste and an
>> item.
>
> Not quite. Table salt is NaCl. Sweet has quite a range from
>strawberries to ice cream to table sugar and more. You couldn't put
>together a tube of sweet any more than you could put together a tube of
>sour.

Some time ago a flavor chemist spoke at one of our monthly chemistry
meetings. According to her, sweet/sour/salt/bitter are tastes---what
the tastebuds respond to---while everything else is a flavor. The
nose is the organ that distinguishes flavors.

Close your eyes, pinch your nose shut with the fingers, have someone
pop a jellybean in your mouth. Try to determine the flavor. It's
awfully hard (dunno if I'd say 'impossible' but we all tried it and no
one in the room could tell the flavor of their jellybean).

I don't know where she stood on umami...

Best -- Terry