How does your tongue taste things?

Your taste buds read five things: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and the savoury one called umami. That is all the tongue itself can do.

Almost everything else you think of as taste is actually smell, drifting up the back of your throat into your nose. It is why food goes flat when you have a cold. Taste buds are replaced constantly, so your tongue is always renewing its readers.