Water tastes neutral because your taste receptors are constantly exposed to water because it’s universally present in and on living tissue. You don’t sense things that are constantly there.
Tangent, but I remember when I was a kid I would try to explain people that I could “smell” the “air coonditioned air” and everyone was like “what? No you can’t, it’s just air. It doesn’t smell like anything.”
I never did figure out what the smell was. I’m guessing it was some kind of chemical; it wasn’t a bad smell, though. It smelled like ice cubes (which I know, doesn’t make a lot of sense either.)
Anyway, all this to say that a lot of people have very strong senses. (And the other comments about water not being neutral are correct as well!)
Ice cubes do have some smell, now that you mention it. Humans have an amazing ability to smell moisture, which we evolved for being able to find water sources. So your experience with AC could relate to how AC affects the humidity in the air perhaps.
And in context of this thread, smell is one of the largest factors for our experience of flavor. Without a sense of smell, most foods would taste relatively bland.
You’ve got sensors for acidity and alkalinity, but water is almost never truly neutral, so for sure you can taste that. You can also taste/smell a bunch of other stuff in water, like salt, other minerals, or chemicals like chlorine.
You can taste both water and CO. You just need to alter your typical concentration and get used to that, then switch back to a normal concentration. “Normal” will now have a taste.
Even distilled water will have a taste, since you are probably used to bottled or filtered.
I’m guessing you can taste the impurities missing from distilled water. It’s probably closer to being able to tell it’s not quite right then an actual taste, but that’s close enough to be able to call it taste.
In the same way that the sunlight’s spectrum (or at least the part of it that reaches the Earth’s surface) has the most energy of green wavelengths, which are conveniently in the middle of the light spectrum visible by humans.
I could see that water being “neutral” on taste for most people is probably evolutionary. But I’m just speculating.
Water tastes neutral because your taste receptors are constantly exposed to water because it’s universally present in and on living tissue. You don’t sense things that are constantly there.
Water is neutral in taste the same way that CO is scentless - it is literally too small for the things to pick it up.
Am I weird in that I definitely can taste water?
Tangent, but I remember when I was a kid I would try to explain people that I could “smell” the “air coonditioned air” and everyone was like “what? No you can’t, it’s just air. It doesn’t smell like anything.”
I never did figure out what the smell was. I’m guessing it was some kind of chemical; it wasn’t a bad smell, though. It smelled like ice cubes (which I know, doesn’t make a lot of sense either.)
Anyway, all this to say that a lot of people have very strong senses. (And the other comments about water not being neutral are correct as well!)
Ice cubes do have some smell, now that you mention it. Humans have an amazing ability to smell moisture, which we evolved for being able to find water sources. So your experience with AC could relate to how AC affects the humidity in the air perhaps.
And in context of this thread, smell is one of the largest factors for our experience of flavor. Without a sense of smell, most foods would taste relatively bland.
You’ve got sensors for acidity and alkalinity, but water is almost never truly neutral, so for sure you can taste that. You can also taste/smell a bunch of other stuff in water, like salt, other minerals, or chemicals like chlorine.
I doubt you’re drinking pure water. You’re almost definitely tasting all the minerals and junk in the water rather than the water itself.
No
You can taste both water and CO. You just need to alter your typical concentration and get used to that, then switch back to a normal concentration. “Normal” will now have a taste. Even distilled water will have a taste, since you are probably used to bottled or filtered.
A concentration of what in what? The “taste” of water is the impurities, not the H2O itself
I’m guessing you can taste the impurities missing from distilled water. It’s probably closer to being able to tell it’s not quite right then an actual taste, but that’s close enough to be able to call it taste.
Yes indeed, you can perceive it but it’s not out of sensory stimulation - rather the lack thereof.
No really, you can taste distilled water.
In the same way that the sunlight’s spectrum (or at least the part of it that reaches the Earth’s surface) has the most energy of green wavelengths, which are conveniently in the middle of the light spectrum visible by humans.