In search of flavour

When I studied psychology back in the 1990s one of our units explored cognition and one subset of that was taste. Specifically, we learned that there were five core taste elements: sweet, salt, bitter, sour and umami. Beyond those are flavours, detected by combining our senses of taste and smell, helping us to distinguish between foods. 

It's Day 7 of my COVID-19 experience and these theoretical concepts are coming to life. I can't really smell anything and accordingly have lost the ability to enjoy flavours, though I can still sense which of the taste elements are present. A piece of Persian Love Cake tastes blandly sweet but I can't detect the nutmeg and cardamom. A serve of nachos tastes salty (and my lips tingle from the chilli) but the spicy kick is wasted on me. Pickles are vinegary and lemon butter is sour but neither taste like their usual selves. This is weird … hoping things improve soon.