In a recent interview with The Drinks Business, Charles Spence, an Oxford University professor of experimental psychology, said that the idea that humans can only detect five basic tastes is “outdated” and needs to be revised. “We only talk about five basic tastes: sweet, sour, salty, bitter and recently umami. Scientists have discovered there are as many as 20 different tastes, including fat, metallic, calcium, astringency and hotness.

“We all live in different taste worlds and ‘super tasters’ can have up to 16 times the amount of taste buds on their tongue as ordinary tasters,” he said. The professor has worked on taste experiments with Heston Blumenthal at The Fat Duck Experimental Kitchen for the last 12 years and is currently involved in a project at the El Bulli research institute near Barcelona.