“What water is to tongues, darkness is to eyes, and silence is to ears. Water as a natural material tends to be tasteless.” – Aristotle
We have been aware for countless generations that water lacks flavour. It has been asserted that pure water is tasteless, odourless, and colourless. It is not, however, so easy and straightforward. A few decades later, researchers found that pure distilled water might have a distinct smell. Some people perceived it as harsh, while others perceived it as monotonous. There was evidence in the 1920s that water changed flavour depending on what you had just consumed.
Oh, you can taste water now?
If you take a sip of water after putting something acidic on your tongue, it can taste sweet; if you take a sip after something salty, it might taste bitter. In the 1960s and 1970s, Yale psychologist Linda Bartoshuk published a number of articles on the alleged aftertastes of water. Additionally, she had learned that saliva might enhance the flavour of the water. Your tongue, for instance, is likely to spit salt throughout the day. It will lose all flavour once your mouth has adjusted to this flavour. The next time you take a sip, your mouth will resume tasting sour or bitter if you wash away this salty spit with plain water. The psychologist claimed to have discovered this.
Researchers have asserted that water has a taste in other situations as well. According to a 2017 study, water may not be a tasteless liquid. According to research, our tongue’s sour-sensing cells can distinguish a distinct flavour in water. The research was released in the Nature Neuroscience journal. It claimed that your taste receptor cells use taste nerves to send data about what you taste to your brain.
In a 2017 study, scientists examined how these mice’s taste nerves responded electrically to several flavours, including water. The basic flavours found in humans-sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and umami-made the response predictable. But they also discovered that clean water stimulated the taste nerves. They discovered that water activated the “sour” taste receptor cells, which are linked to the amygdala in your brain. Working memory is aided by this tiny, almond-shaped region of the brain, which is also known for processing emotions.
According to scientists, this connection has developed as a result of humankind’s evolutionary necessity to recognise that certain tastes, like bitter, may indicate that their food is bad or dangerous. The same rule applies to water; if it has an odd flavour, it might be contaminated. Your body therefore urges you to consciously spit it out in order to prevent infection or other damage.
What is the conclusion?
So in a nutshell, yes, water does taste. The flavour you taste when you drink greatly depends on where it comes from and how it was sourced. The second element is what you infer from your personal taste experiences. When you drink water, taste receptors in your brain affect how the water tastes.
#Water #Taste
