Flavor

Flavor is the combined sensory experience of gustatory (taste) and olfactory (smell) input—especially retronasal smell, when odor molecules travel from the back of the mouth into the nose while you eat. Taste alone gives you the five basic qualities (sweet, salty, sour, bitter, umami); flavor is what lets you tell an apple from a pear or recognize a wine. In the brain, taste and retronasal smell integrate in regions such as the insula into a single flavor experience. The Imagination Index measures gustatory imagery and olfactory imagery separately so you can see how each contributes to how you imagine food and flavor; in practice they often work together when you recall or anticipate a meal.