# Are there any words for tastes that don't relate to other things?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-words-for-tastes-that-dont-relate-to-other-things/711473
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [February 1, 2015, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-words-for-tastes-that-dont-relate-to-other-things/711473 "2015-02-01T00:07:57Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2015, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-words-for-tastes-that-dont-relate-to-other-things/711473/1 "2015-02-01T00:07:57Z")
Seems to me that we lack any agreed upon words for specific tastes or even taste ingredients. We say things are smoky, or salty, or tannic, or that they taste like banana. And those are all terms that relate to the tastes of something else. There are also a bunch of more subjective terms, such as dark, heavy, etc. but they aren’t very precise and don’t point to anything specific. But aside from the word, sweet, sour, or bitter (and maybe umami), I can’t think of any words that one can use to describe the way something tastes so that someone else can grok it. Same with smell. Do wine tasters and other foodie types use a vocabulary that includes any words that most of us don’t use or know? Do these words exist?
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2015, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-words-for-tastes-that-dont-relate-to-other-things/711473/2 "2015-02-01T00:29:36Z")
Acrid, sharp, pungent, savoury, astringent, tangy, aromatic, fragrant, mellow, piquant, bland, tart…
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### Author:  [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2015, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-words-for-tastes-that-dont-relate-to-other-things/711473/3 "2015-02-01T01:05:18Z")
> [@CC](#):
>
> …But aside from the word, sweet, sour, or bitter (and maybe umami),…
Isn’t the word “sour” related to the word for “acid” in German? Anyway, “sour” basically means “tastes like acid” anyway. E.g. lemons taste so sour because of all the citric acid and ascorbic acid that they contain.
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2015, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-words-for-tastes-that-dont-relate-to-other-things/711473/4 "2015-02-01T10:07:56Z")
Generic words for taste are going to run to synonyms pretty quickly anyway - because, apart from the basic sweet/sour/salty/bitter/umami, flavour is about aroma and is very often composed of multiple different chemicals - meaning there is a very large range of possible flavours, and thus, no real way to have generic names for them.
If we invented a generic word to label the flavour of chocolate, all we’ve done is to create a pointless synonym for “chocolatey”.
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### Author:  [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2015, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-words-for-tastes-that-dont-relate-to-other-things/711473/5 "2015-02-01T10:22:06Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#):
>
> Isn’t the word “sour” related to the word for “acid” in German?
This is true (“sour” in German is _sauer_, and “acid” is the corresponding noun _Säure_), but the chemical concept of an acid got its name from the taste sensation rather than vice versa.