The misuse of taste names by untrained observers.

Many subjects cannot identify sour and bitter solutions which they can clearly taste. Subjects show a great deal of agreement on the taste of predominantly sweet and predominantly salt substances, but much less agreement on predominantly bitter and predominantly sour substances. The argument is put forward that we do not easily learn the sour/bitter distinction because few food substances taste strongly bitter. Because bitter has an unpleasant connotation a large minority tends to use it wrongly for substances that are unpleasantly sour.