After years of waiting, I finally listened to family and got dentures to replace teeth that had gone bad: I have a lower partial and a full upper now. Looks great - but: I notice that the way food tastes is changed. Does the roof of the mouth have any role in the way the tongue tastes food? It certainly seems that way … the slickness of the upper keeps me from tasting/chewing/dissolving some foods the way I could before I got it. Like pieces of chocolate: I have to chew all but the softest, or they won’t melt the way they did before, and it seems I don’t get the full taste.
Taste isn’t just from the tongue but also includes texture and smell. The denture changes the feel of food in the mouth. When you have a cold and can’t smell well food tastes more bland. Also with a denture one chews differently which can affect sensation.
I went full uppers about a year or two ago and I noticed exactly what you’re describing and just assumed that either there are flavour receptors in the roof of the mouth or that the upper was changing the amount/way of saliva being produced. One of the things I no longer eat is chewing gum; at first, I missed it terribly, but now I don’t even think about it.
You do have taste buds in the roof of your mouth. Mine seem to be geared toward sour and bitter, especially near my molars. Test it out with cotton swabs dipped in lemon, vinegar, or tonic water.
I recently got a lower partial that replaces most, but not all of my lower teeth and I have noticed the same loss of taste in food. Since I don’t yet have an upper denture, this effect was unexpected, so I did some research. The effect of taste loss has more to do with the taste of your denture than anything else. Although the taste is relatively neutral, the material that your dentures are made of do indeed have a taste of their own. Since your olfactory and taste senses are picking up the taste of these materials, there are less of them available to sense the food, hence the perception of taste loss, rather than taste change. Many people with denture say that this effect eventually dissipates and taste improves, likely because your brain learns to ignore the taste of the dentures.
