Sensory Physiology

Taste describes stimuli perceived with receptors on the tongue, palate, and throat.

The human tongue can detect proteins (umami), and differentiate the tastes sour, sweet, bitter and salt. While the detection of sweet, salty and umami serves the need for uptake of carbohydrates, salt and protein as major food and mineral sources, the detection of bitter and sour serves to assess the ripeness of fruits, to warn against possible microbial spoilage and detection of possible toxins.

Umami can be perceived over the whole tongue, sour, sweet, salty and bitter on the other hand are perceived at different locations on the tongue.