I’m talking about the different types of taste as in the gustatory perception and not the one where you prefer someone or something as compared to the other.

In grade school, we all learned that there were 4 basic types of tastes, it includes, bitter, sweet, sour and salty and that was it. Of course that does not include taste combinations like sweet and sour or bitter sweet, and so on.

But like everything else, it has changed. You see in recent studies, recent meaning during this generation, well after our own, scientists, or whoever conducts these studies, found out that there are actually 6 different types of tastes.

So there’s bitter, sweet, sour, salty and then there’s umami and metallic (apparently).

We’re all familiar with the four basic types, but not everyone knows what exactly umami and metallic tastes taste like.

Umami is a Japanese word which means pleasant savory taste. Basically, that is what umami is, it’s a savory taste, something that is delicious. The word umami comes from 2 Japanese words, umai meaning delicious and mi meaning taste.

Ajinomoto, a popular brand of food flavouring here in the Philippines, as well as in many other countries, enhances that of the Umami taste. I don’t use it that often though because I have had kidney problems before, and MSG, or monosodium glutamate can be deadly to me, if not controlled.

As for the Metallic taste, have you ever tasted your spoon? That’s how it tastes like, it’s more of a sensation rather than a taste, and most people don’t even include it in the taste map, but still it is worth mentioning.