Difference Between Taste and Flavor

Taste vs Flavor
 

Is there a difference between taste and flavor? Does taste and flavor mean the same thing? Let’s make this doubt cleared. It is customary for people to talk about the food being tasty after a delicious snack or meal. It seems that the food is tasty whenever a person is happy, and he likes the food. However, the same cannot be said about the flavor of a food item. Flavor is a property of a food item that is not dependent upon our five taste senses. Thus, Darjeeling tea has its unique flavor though it may be tasty for some or not. However, this is not enough to describe the differences between taste and flavor. Read on as this article clearly distinguishes the differences between taste and flavor.

What does Taste mean?

There are millions who feel that we talk of flavor only when we find some food item tasty and appealing to our senses. These five taste senses are sweet, bitter, salty, sour, and umami. This is how food items are classified depending upon whether they are sweet, sour, salty, and so on. Thus, taste is sensory (depends upon what the mouth feels after eating a dish).

What does Flavor mean?

Whether we accept taste being different from flavor or not, flavor, it seems is much more than these five senses. Some experts say that flavor incorporates all these five senses plus something else that is magical and cannot be defined in simple words. In fact, all psychological associations that come to the mind of a person after eating a food item can be considered as triggers for a particular flavor.

When a city is described as having a cosmopolitan flavor, it is clear that the speaker has an impression that is subjective and immeasurable. Flavor is post sensory experiences, and one can talk about the flavors of a steak after consuming it. While taste is known as sensor, flavor is known as post sensory.

Here is another definition given to flavor by the Culinary Innovation Center. According to them, ‘Flavor is a combination of taste plus the other sensations that influence our perception of food, such as aroma, texture, juiciness, mouth feel and color.’

Humans can distinguish between five tastes and tell straight away even when blindfolded about the taste being bitter or sweet. Our senses tell us what we have tasted, and we recount based on the physical input our brain receives from our senses. Once this information reaches our brain, it becomes a perception and the brain registers a food item as not just bitter or sweet but as a distinct flavor that makes an impression, and we instinctively recognize the flavor whenever we see the food item. Our receptors of taste are situated on our tongue and tell us instantly if we have had a sweet or a salty food item. We also have a sense of smell through which we identify different food items. It is the combined perception of both these senses (along with the senses of sound and sight) that we make up the final picture called the flavor of a food item.

What is the difference between Taste and Flavor?

• Taste is one of the five senses and is categorized differently as sweet, bitter, salty, sour and umami.

• Flavor is immeasurable while taste is quantifiable into bitter, sweet, salty, sour or umami.

• Taste is sensory while flavor is post sensory impression.

• Taste has a physical basis, whereas flavor is subjective.

• Flavor is taste plus other sensations that arise when we are eating or drinking something.