umami (fifth taste)
Posted by beng leong toh on December 15, 2005
Q: Where is the place of umami on the human tongue?
A: I had to do some real hunting to find reference to a "taste map" for umami. Apparently, the taste maps that are in so many of the text books are a real simplification of what is happening. In other words, there really isn't just one area or another for a particular taste, it's more general than that. From what I was able to learn, umami is more generalized over the tongue, it is not localized, and many/most taste buds react to this taste. Hope this helps.
John Wiessinger ( December 18, 2005)
Filed under: Mammals