The sense of taste in mammals, including humans, is a complex natural mechanism that acts as a sentinel system, allowing for a quick recognition of chemicals that enter the oral cavity and the discrimination between healthy and nutritious food and substances potentially toxic or dangerous to health. This crucial ability is enabled by the key players of the sense of taste, i.e. taste receptors: these are highly specialized proteins that play the role of molecular switches for specific cellular signalling pathways, ultimately resulting in the perception of the five basic tastes: sweet, bitter, umami, salty and sour. Moreover, several studies have shown that the localization of taste receptors is not limited to the oral cavity only, but is rather widespread throughout the human body, including the gastrointestinal tract and the central nervous system, where a direct sensation of taste is not evoked.