Question

You have allergies that are causing severe nasal congestion and you can’t smell anything. Your roommate knows you aren’t feeling great, so they offer to make you breakfast. When you get to the table, you see two steaming mugs of black liquid, a plate of toast and two small bowls of jelly. Your roommate says, “I didn’t know your favorites, so I put out a cup of tea and a cup of coffee. I also put out peach jelly and orange marmalade for your toast.” After tasting everything, what decisions are you able to make about your breakfast?

A. You can easily distinguish coffee from tea and peach jelly from marmalade because taste buds have dedicated receptors that retain information about previously consumed foods.

B. You can easily distinguish sweet peach jelly from sweet-and-sour marmalade; distinguishing coffee from tea is more difficult, but you correctly choose coffee because it is more intensely bitter than tea.

C. You are unable to distinguish coffee from tea or peach jelly from marmalade without their odorants because taste buds only work in conjunction with odorants.

D. You can easily distinguish coffee from tea because they each activate unique taste buds, but you find it difficult to distinguish sweet peach jelly from sweet-and-sour marmalade because sweet and sour tastes are integrated by the same neurons in the brain

Answer 1

Option A

Reason –

Taste is perceived by the receptors present on different areas of tongue. These receptors are called as taste bud.

These taste buds are highly sensitive to sweetness, sourness, saltiness, bitterness and Umami taste. The taste perceiving capability of a person vary from one individual to other as it depends on size of tongue (the larger is the tongue, the number of taste buds it has) and also on the shape of the taste buds.

In general, taste buds are located at four locations including the tongue which are as follows –

a)         Surface of the tongue

b)         Side of the tongue

c)         Roof of the mouth

d)         Entrance to the pharynx

Bitter and Umami taste is sensed by papillae located at the back of the tongue

Sweet and umami taste is sensed by taste buds located at the tip of the tongue

Saltiness and sourness by the papillae located at the sides of the tongue

The taste of coffee and tea is determined by both the papillae and taste buds located at the back and tip of the tongue. Thus the taste of these two can be easily distinguished.

Taste of peach jelly is sweet while the taste of orange marmalade is sweet and sour. Due to sourness, orange marmalade can be easily distinguished from peach jelly

Thus, option A is correct