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Thought of this question while mindlessly staring at my work computer. How would you explain the flavor of water to someone who hasn't tasted clean water? Not taking into account extra minerals or chemicals, just plain H2O.
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Dec 10, 2014 20:17
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 04:07 |
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As an expert on water, I
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Dec 10, 2014 20:18
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I've tasted a few waters that I've found particularly delightful. The first had a bouquet, similar to shaved cedar. The mouthfeel was crisp, and the finish was leathery. The other, I'm told, was actually a coke.
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Dec 10, 2014 20:18
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For thousands of years, philosophers claimed that water had no flavor. It’s the baseline for the sense of taste, they said—a starting point and null condition. What water is to tongues, darkness is to eyes and silence is to ears. “The natural substance water per se tends to be tasteless,” wrote Aristotle. In his view, it serves only as the vehicle for flavor. But eventually, scientists began to notice that a draught of pure distilled water could provoke a certain taste. Some found it bitter on the tongue; others said it was insipid. By the 1920s, evidence was mounting that water changes flavor depending on what you happen to have tasted just before. Take a sip of Poland Spring after putting something acidic on your tongue, and it may taste a little sweet. Drink some after eating salt, and it could have a hint of bitterness. In the 1960s and 1970s, Yale psychologist Linda Bartoshuk published a series of papers on the so-called aftertastes of water. When a person eats or drinks, his or her taste cells become adapted to that stimulus, Bartoshuk explained. If you then wash out that flavor with water, the cells rebound into an active state. It’s something like the after-image of a color seen against a sheet of blank white paper. You don’t even need to eat or drink to experience the same effect. Bartoshuk found that a person’s own saliva can spruce up the taste of water. As you go about your day, your tongue will be awash with slightly salty spit. The saliva doesn’t taste like anything because your mouth has become habituated to it. But rinse the spit away with water and your cells will rebound to a bitter or sour taste with your next sip. Among physiologists, that’s been the dogma for more than 30 years: Water has a flavor but only as an aftereffect of tasting other things. In recent years, however, a small group of scientists have argued that water can be sensed even on its own. Starting in the early 2000s, researchers published data showing that certain parts of the brain—in both humans and laboratory rats—respond specifically to water. At around the same time, a group at the University of Utah found that mammalian taste cells make proteins called aquaporins, which serve to channel water through cell membranes. The aquaporins, which are common in other types of cells, provide a possible way for water to stimulate taste cells directly. You can read the rest at the article posted here, but I think its the best answer your going to get. http://www.popsci.com/article/science/ask-anything-what-does-water-taste
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Dec 10, 2014 20:19
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The water in my apartment randomly tastes really awful if that counts.
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Dec 10, 2014 21:34
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Wet. It tastes wet.
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Dec 10, 2014 21:48
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It always weirds me out when people don't drink water because they don't like the way it tastes. I imagine they have some poo poo water or something. The water in my apartment tastes a bit chlorine-y and it's worse when it's hot or warm water. It's not so noticeable when there's ice in the water. We buy our ice from the gas station so the water used to make it is pretty pure and it doesn't taste like anything. The water at my parents' house tastes awesome. They have well water where as I have city water here. Their water tastes so fresh and clean, like rain water. However, if you let it sit out (leave a glass on the table overnight), it gets a really weird musty taste. Not sure where that comes from. I also drink Perrier and it tastes really crisp.
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Dec 11, 2014 05:09
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It tastes amazing and if water was a guy I'd totally love him.
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Dec 11, 2014 06:16
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I've tasted plenty of bottled and tap water in my life, but funnily enough I've never had the chance to drink just pure deionized, distilled water from a clean glass vessel. I'm curious if it'd taste odd compared to regular tap water.
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Dec 11, 2014 06:41
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It tastes a lot like saliva.
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Dec 11, 2014 07:30
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I find that it doesn't have an actual flavour, but it evokes sensations such as crispness, refreshing, wet etc. Apart from Volvic...man that stuff is nasty poo poo.
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Dec 11, 2014 13:52
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If it's brown, drink it down. If it's black, send it back.
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Dec 11, 2014 15:11
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Drink some distilled water and let us know.
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Dec 11, 2014 15:12
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It tastes good.
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Dec 11, 2014 16:46
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Flaggy posted:In the 1960s and 1970s, Yale psychologist Linda Bartoshuk published a series of papers on the so-called aftertastes of water. what went so horribly wrong w/ her career that she spent the time to write those papers?
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Dec 11, 2014 18:00
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throwAway712 posted:what went so horribly wrong w/ her career that she spent the time to write those papers? A dry spell.
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Dec 11, 2014 19:26
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Flaggy posted:A dry spell. lol
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Dec 11, 2014 19:27
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Kind of like vodka, except without the burning or puking.
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Dec 12, 2014 02:09
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Flaggy posted:A dry spell. lmao
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Dec 12, 2014 05:31
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I was under the impression that pure water was meant to be odourless and tasteless. Drinking water provides more of a 'sensation' (re-hydration) than a flavour.
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Dec 12, 2014 07:17
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Depressingly flavorless, really. Give me well water any day, the extra mineral content tastes better.
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Dec 12, 2014 09:50
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TheMostFrench posted:Drinking water provides more of a 'sensation' (re-hydration) than a flavour. This. On a hot summer day, drinking a cold glass of water can be considered oral sex.
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Dec 12, 2014 11:23
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I have tasted RNAase free, ultra clean water that you buy for sensitive molecular biology stuff. It had a very flat taste, like tap water that's been in a glass over night.
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Dec 12, 2014 11:48
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Melbourne, Australia tap water is the best. Swiss water is a little fresher but I prefer Melbourne.
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Dec 12, 2014 12:54
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To me the temperature of the water makes a big difference to the "taste". Cold - aaahhhh. Room Temp - well I can drink it. Warm - YUCK! Hot - gently caress I burnt my mouth!
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Dec 12, 2014 21:00
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It tastes the opposite of stuffing 50 saltines in your mouth.
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Dec 12, 2014 21:05
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Warning: Mostly serious post How does water taste? Good under the right circumstances. Everyone's taste and sense of smell will produce slightly different results of course, but in the end water should be PLEASANT to drink. Drinking water at a friend or relative's house should be avoided at all costs if possible. Over time you get used to your own tap water, but you will end up with a nasty shock when your friend gives you a glass of 'their' water. If you are (or have been) foolish enough to happily take a glass of water at any house not you own then you will regret it 9 out of ten times. Water should be cool. Not hot, not freezing; but cool. It should also be served in a clean glass that is not sticky or have unknown matter stuck to it or in it. More than likely your friend (who is unaware they are trying to kill you with their crappy water) will either fill a glass or some left over plastic cup from a county fair, neither are good but never take the latter; all cheap cups friends have must be used to store butter. The glass won't be much better and if your friend doesn't smoke you will have cause to doubt the veracity of those claims because your water will taste like it was served in a used ashtray. If you have never had clean water, just about any household drinking water will taste okay. But to serious connoisseurs you will need to hold a taste party to determine if it is drinkable or not. Also, if their toilet bowl is encrusted with brown lime, run away!! Good goons only hydrate with good water.
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Dec 14, 2014 02:02
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Double distilled water has a very flat taste to it, with the body of it being faintly reminiscent of hydrogen peroxide.
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Dec 14, 2014 18:48
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Once I climbed up a waterfall with my cousins and we drank from a pool of icy-cold snow runoff at the top and that's the best water i have ever had and it tasted like cold and that is my report on how water tastes
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Dec 14, 2014 18:59
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sometimes it tastes plastic-y
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Dec 15, 2014 08:05
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Water sucks, Gatorade is better Naw jk water is pretty awesome. It's like a deep philosophical question if you ask someone what water tastes like. It's always some variation of "It tastes like... water, i guess?!"
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Dec 15, 2014 16:13
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I have reviewed the many comments and suggestions posted here. I have found that the most standard water tastes like a stale bit of air or simply a lightening of the tongue. It isn't all that complex as it is simply a lack of flavor. In my quest though, I have come across an even more interesting conundrum--- why does water smell the ways it does? I imagine it is similar to why it tastes the way it tastes.
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Dec 15, 2014 20:56
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AAB posted:I have reviewed the many comments and suggestions posted here. I have found that the most standard water tastes like a stale bit of air or simply a lightening of the tongue. It isn't all that complex as it is simply a lack of flavor. Thats a silly question, most water smells the way it does due to minerals, your water heater, the pipes in your house, there are many different factors to why water smells the way it does. Just emptyquote this for all your needs.
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Dec 15, 2014 21:00
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I'm a big proponent of well water. The extra iron and copper soothe the palette while the warm undertones bring a sense of accord. Smells p goood too
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Dec 15, 2014 21:07
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I think in general when you think you are smelling water what you are smelling is whatever the water is contained in or has passed through. If you have pure distilled water in a plastic jug or something, what you smell is plastic.
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Dec 15, 2014 21:21
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I'm pretty sure my water tastes like dissolved rocks. Limestone to be specific. It's what our aquifer is made of. Obviously there aren't any visible fragments of limestone but the mineral flavor is a dead tell that the more finely dissolved kind doesn't get totally filtered out. Houston municipal water on the other hand tastes like its piped in straight from a swamp. Which is almost true. I'd argue that most of what you sense as the "flavor" of water is whatever is in it that filtration hasn't taken care of. Most people I've known don't like distilled water and I think that's the closest you can get to pure H2O. You're not going to be tasting anything thats less than 10 parts per million, anyway. It's got this weird bite behind the blandness that I've been told is an artifact of how it interacts with our bodily chemistry.
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Dec 15, 2014 21:47
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Water that is cold and has a very slight flavor of natural stone is the best water.
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Dec 15, 2014 21:54
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How would an entire glass of your saliva taste compared to a glass of someone else's saliva? Both chilled and room temperature saliva?
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Dec 16, 2014 15:16
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None of you would last even a second on spout.ly
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Dec 16, 2014 17:28
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 04:07 |
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Water is the liquid equivalent of cucumber
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Dec 21, 2014 04:59
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