Are all flavors known?

All the ones we know of are. :-)

When I was a kid, they were teaching that we have only four kinds of taste buds; sweet, sour, bitter and salty. Now it’s five. They added umami, which is the taste of meat broth. So who’s to say definitively that a sixth taste bud can’t possibly be found?

All the enormous subtleties of taste we actually experience come from (as far as we know today) feedback from the five basic taste buds plus our sense of smell, which is fantastically more nuanced than the taste bud information flow.

We cannot know the extent of the unknown.

I don’t know if there is anyone who is familiar with all the tastes available in all the world. Discerning all the flavors in one glass of a particular wine, is an art. Just thinking of some flavors that some people love and I haven’t even tried: durian; lutefisk; fenugreek; whale meat; and I’m sure, many, many more. I don’t think you can guess what something is going to taste like unless you can smell it. And even then, you may be wrong.

@Nullo That’s a great way of saying it. Very pithy.

I don’t think that “olfactory space” is as thoroughly known as other senses. We won’t discover any new colors or sounds, for instance, but taste & smell might still hold surprises, given our limited knowledge of the molecular biology involved. It was only in recent years that a 5th type of taste bud was discovered – “savory” or umami – which is rather astonishing in itself. Good question!

@ETpro Thanks!

Mathematically it can probably be solved. Of known elements and combinations of compounds I’m sure there are simulations with the present elements on earth that can reveal a really good rough estimate.

They may be known to some, but not to all.
I, for one, will never know the flavor of poo and piss, apparently a delicacy to some. :-/
Also, when I traveled in asia in 2010 I tasted many flavors I had not tasted before, including sea snails in brine, squid on a stick and lots of exotic and unidentified flavors, origins unknown and probably best left at that. lol
I hope I didn’t inadvertently eat a dog sausage, but, the night markets were exotic, to say the least.

Thank God for the universal flavor of beer. lol

@Coloma Amen to beer. Enough of that and most anything will taste good.

It’s safe to say that although we might not ever know which tastes are possible, we do roughly know the handful of taste senses that they will fit under. We might not know if there is another flavor that could rival chocolate, but a safe bet is it will be something sweet. Knowing that we do access the fundamental flavors makes not ever knowing all the subtle possibilities a little more bearable. An undiscovered taste might be great, but it’s likely because it will be sweet or savory that we like it.

The number of different flavors the human brain can distinguished is limited. It’s still a large number. The number of different colors the human brain can distinguished is limited too.

Are all flavors known? No, but there’s a limit for the remaining flavors to be discovered.

@mattbrowne But wouldn’t that limit be retained only for what we might consider edible?
If not, then there are infinite possibilities of flavor to be discovered that will remain undiscovered because we consider certain flavors to be unpalatable, like the flavor of aged rubber tires, carpet foam, silk lamp shades, egg cartons and ink. lol

I’m sure many of these are bursting with flavor. haha

@Coloma – The eyes, ears, taste buds and so forth all have limits of what they can send along the neurons connected to the brain. These numbers are certainly high, but not infinite.

@mattbrowne Gotcha’, my silliness is in fine form this morning. ;-)

No. Who knows what food on other planets taste like.

As others have said, there’s more to taste than the tongue. With smell and taste, it’s the shape and content of the individual molecules in food that our brain then interprets as taste. I find this incredibly cool. Very subtle changes in a molecules shape/composition can yield a new taste.

There are people with superior noses. They earn a fortune working at perfume companies. There’s serious research into making a mechanical nose that will spot a wide variety of smells. I am sure they have it for tongues as well.

How many tastes are there? Who knows? :)

Does pasta taste different depending on its shape? It seems to me that it does, but it is all made from the same stuff. Maybe shape, size and texture of food affect our sensation of taste.

Some people cannot even distinguish the flavors that are known. I’m sure that so many things factor into the perception of flavor. I think read just today that 80% of experiencing flavor depends on the sense of smell, and 20% depends on the tastebuds. People vary in the amount of tastebuds that they have and so their sensitivity to flavors is different. Statistics group 25% of people in the “non-taster” category (those with low ability to distinguish flavors), 50% in the normal taster category and 25% in the super-taster category. Here’s an article about training the palate. Here’s how to determine what group you fall into.
I did the test today and found out that I am a supertaster.