That's because our sense of taste is really closely tied to our sense of smell as well.

To the point that a lot of people, unless they have been specifically trained, might not even realize that the "taste" of something is largely from an aromatic compound they are actually smelling.

That said, if you somehow perfectly got the actual flavor compounds right, and got the aromatics just right you could almost make something that at least "tastes" like the real thing.

Except then there are also things like temperature and texture/mouth feel that affect it too. So a gummy that tastes exactly like a big mac isn't going to trick anyone. Because a big mac isn't just "Big Mac flavor" it's about how two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions on a sesame seed bun feel in your mouth.

A great example of this is how food doesn't taste the same when you have a cold.

To be clear the following does not contradict u/Caucasiafro's explanation but compliments it.

From here:

> In the mouth itself, though, food scientists continue to discover new receptors and new pathways for gustatory impressions to reach our brain. Here are some taste sensations vying for a place at the table as a sixth basic taste.

> 1. Calcium

> 2. Kokumi

> 3. Piquance

> 4. Coolness

> 5. Metallicity

> 6. Fat

> 7. Carbon Dioxide

Note that article goes into detail about the arguments for and against clasifying those items as distinct senses of taste.

A really weird and interesting thing I learned recently is that even though your nose is doing the smelling when you eat, it's different from smelling when you inhale. People feel a different response to the same compounds when they enter the olfactory center from the back of the throat than through their nostrils

We can taste a greater variety of flavors than you listed. It is merely a limitation of language that there are limited words to describe different flavors. For instance English also uses the words creamy, rich, tangy, hot, spicy, and herbaceous to describe flavors. These just aren't the "basic" flavors you listed above, but totally distinct flavors.

Sometimes it tastes better

This blows my mind but makes perfect sense.

What about the Big Mick? They don't have sesame seeds.

man, product placement is getting more and more scientific.

McDowell's might be able to pull it off.

The space in the nostral also seems to matter. That 'fresh rain smell' primarily consists of a compound called geosmin. It smells fresh and nice from outside, but injesting it tastes moldy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8vHsY_QVHM

Add to this that the brain changes the "flavor" of food based on what it thinks the food is.

There have been experiments showing people report different flavors of food/drink based on the color of the bowl/cup the food is served in.

Obvious the color of the container doesn't actually change the food flavor but the brain takes it into account.

While we only have 5 ‘tastes’, smell is also a major component of how we experience food, and this is what creates ‘flavour’. It is detected through the olfactory glands in the nose through the nasal cavity inside the mouth. Without a sense of smell onion tastes almost identical to apple.

Texture and colour are very important. And temperature.

Most people think red and white wine taste different, but in tests, blindfolded people cannot tell the difference when the temperature is the same.

Cooked food tastes different when it has gone cold.

Texture of biscuits, temperature of ice cream, sogginess of cereal all count for a lot.

Knew someone with no sense of smell their entire life....they hated peanut butter because they said it was flavorless and felt like eating oily beach sand. its amazing how important the sense of smell is to taste