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The myth

Humans experience each of the different tastes on different parts of the tongue.


The “truth”

You can still find “Tongue Maps” in books and on websites today, showing that sweet is tasted on the tip of the tongue, bitter at the back, and so on. You can even buy special sets of dedicated wineglasses, individually designed to channel the dominant flavours of different wines to the appropriate areas of the tongue. But it’s been known for a long time that all tastes can be detected wherever there are taste buds. Regular readers of this column will be unsurprised to learn that it’s all a historic misunderstanding.