HINI The Development of Taste During Infancy . This will also support the practice of offering at a later date, foods that were rejected originally. Flavour is a combination of factors, including taste, mouth feel, aroma and aftertastes.
Chemical receptors stimulate the taste receptors on the tongue to register a reaction.
With smell, the chemicals stimulate the receptors on tissues in the nasal cavity. While all these factors influence flavour, little experimental work has been done with infants beyond the influence of taste. Tastes include sweet, sour, bitter, salty and perhaps a fifth which is the taste of umami or monosodium glutamate. Sweet is detected on the tip of the tongue, bitter at the back, salty on the side of the tongue near the front and sour is detected on the side of the tongue near the back. Tastes develop in infants over time.