It’s ironic that we associate taste with connoisseurship, subtlety, and fine discrimination when it is among the coarsest of senses. Even our ability to taste bitter, which warns us of hundreds of potentially toxic compounds, isn’t built to distinguish between them. There’s only one sensation of bitter because you don’t need to know which bitter thing you’re tasting—you just need to know to stop tasting it. Taste is mostly a final check before consumption: Should I eat this? That’s why snakes barely bother with taste.
