Human gustation and flavour

Taste is an essential component of flavour. Although taste carries fewer di stinctive qualities than odour, it provides an essential base on which arom a builds to generate the widely varying flavour of our foods and beverages. The present review covers a wide range of perceptual/psychophysical topics on taste. The first section reviews the taste research questions of early last century; the second section addresses the psychophysical taste researc h topics of the last few decades; and in the third section, the question is raised whether the old research topics of 80-100 years ago, which have lar gely not been answered, are worth reconsidering and pursuing. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.