Tasted

Tasted is the past tense and past participle of the verb taste. It denotes the act of perceiving flavor by the sense of the tongue or sampling something to evaluate its flavor. In culinary and beverage contexts, tasted can describe both the act of sampling and the resulting impression, as in “The soup tasted salty” or “We have tasted several wines.”

Grammatical notes include its use in the simple past tense, as in “She tasted the sauce,” and in perfect tenses, as in “She has tasted many wines.” It can also appear in passive constructions, for example, “The sample was tasted by the panel.” When used as part of a participial phrase, it can modify nouns, though such usage is relatively less common in formal writing compared with standard past tense forms.

Etymology traces tasted to the verb taste, which comes from Old French taser or taster, and ultimately from Latin gustare, meaning to sample or to eat. The related noun gustus refers to flavor or taste, and the modern term gustation is used in scientific contexts to denote the sense of taste.

In broader usage, tasted experiences are often described in terms of the five basic flavors—sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami—and are central to food criticism, wine tasting, and sensory science. The term is frequently paired with adjectives describing flavor quality, texture, or aftertaste, as in “tasted notes,” “light-bodied,” or “long finish.”