gustation

/gəˈsteɪʃən/

Gustation is a fancy word for "taste." It's gustation that allows you to experience sweetness and saltiness when you bite into a barbecue potato chip.

Gustation, from the Latin gustare, "to taste, partake of, or enjoy," shares a Proto-Indo-European root with gusto. This is especially apt when you think about enthusiastically eating a meal that's complex and delicious. The process of gustation involves tastes like salty, sour, sweet, and bitter. Gustation begins when you take a bite of food and special cells on your tongue's taste buds begin to react chemically with it.

Definitions of gustation

1. noun

   the faculty of distinguishing sweet, sour, bitter, and salty properties in the mouth
   synonyms: gustatory modality, sense of taste, taste

   type of:

   modality, sense modality, sensory system

   a particular sense

   exteroception

   sensitivity to stimuli originating outside of the body