- You know that icy chill feeling in your mouth when you're chewing minty gum or the blistering sweat inducing heat you feel when you bite into a hot pepper.
These foods aren't changing the actual temperature in your mouth.
Instead, it's the chemical compounds within these foods triggering a reaction called chemesthesis.
What is chemesthesis?
It's basically your body's ability to sense chemical irritants.
These stream sensations don't fit into what we know as the five basic tastes: bitter, salty, sour, sweet and umami.
But when you take chemesthesis into account, suddenly we begin to see that there's more to taste than just the basic five.
Let's go beyond the basics and expand our pallets.
Or at least, what we know about them.
(upbeat music) It's strange to think that spicy isn't listed as one of the basic five tastes because it is one of the most intense.
