TASTE
How is taste affected by the sense of smell, and vice versa?
Read through these opinions to learn about the connection.

Geusi - (Greek) taste.
Ageusia - the absence of the sense of taste.
Hypogeusia - a decreased sense of taste.
Dysgeusia - an unpleasant sense of taste.
Nasal Dysfunction Clinic.

Despite the close association, taste and smell are anatomically and functionally distinct... The olfactory system is vitally important in determining food flavors. During chewing and swallowing, odor-laden air is forced from the rear of the oral cavity to the olfactory receptors, evoking many flavor sensations that people usually associate with taste but that are almost completely dependent on the sense of smell.
Grolier Electronic Encyclopedia

Taste is a sense very different from olfaction. It is another of the human senses and is perceived primarily on the tongue. There are four recognized tastes and these are sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. They occupy geographically separate areas on the tongue and are perceived in cells clustered together in taste buds. The flavor of food is a combination of its temperature, its texture (that means how it feels inside the mouth), its appearance, its taste (meaning salty, bitter, sour, or sweet) and its aroma as perceived by the sense of smell. The sense of smell plays a major role in the flavor of foods and it is common for individuals who lose their sense of smell to report that food loses its taste. This is of course incorrect; the food has only lost its aroma, and taste (sweet, salty, sour, bitter) remains intact.
Nasal Dysfunction Clinic.

True taste disorders are uncommon. A taste disorder may present as a loss of taste, that is the loss of the ability to detect salt, sweet, sour, and bitter or it may present as an abnormal taste in the mouth such as a bitter taste, an unpleasant taste, or even an electrical sensation. Loss of taste is most commonly caused by an interruption of the nerve to the tongue. This can happen as a result of surgery, tumors, or even dental injections. Abnormal tastes may be caused by injury to the taste buds, injury to the nerves responsible for taste, or to a variety of other conditions which occur within the mouth. Occasionally dental work will set up a small electric charge in the mouth just as an electric charge is created in a dry cell battery. This may be perceived as an abnormal taste or as a stinging, electrical kind of feeling. These conditions vary so much that it is difficult to classify them in a meaningful fashion. Nasal Dysfunction Clinic.

Recent studies indicate an even greater importance of the interaction between smells and tastes in food flavor - the sensitivity to an odor (almond) actually improved when there was a sweet taste in the mouth, but not with a savory taste - almond + sweet is experienced as cherry - this suggests there is actually a specific site in the brain where integration of taste and smell information occurs - in other words, "flavor" is greater than the sum of taste + smell, so only getting half of the sensation will give you less than half of the "flavor quality"! It might be that texture and irritation could help to offset this, and that would be an interesting study to do.
Nancy E. Rawson, Ph.D. Associate Member Monell Chemical Senses Center

Smell is 10,000 times more powerful than taste. Taste is mostly (~75 %) smell.
www.cf.ac.uk/biosi/staff/jacob/teaching/sensory/olfact1.html

Taste and smell are very strongly linked. You can smell without tasting, but your taste is greatly affected if you cannot smell. Opening your nostrils allows food vapor to flow to reach your olfactory epithelium.
http://faculty.erau.edu/vincenzd/hfs615/sensation_ch15_outline.htm

Generally, your taste sensation is overwhelmed by the smell sensation, to the extent that the taste sensation is almost imperceptible.
www.golgotha.org.uk/useful/anosmia.html

In my opinion, arguments about taste and smell are difficult to keep clear unless you upgrade the vocabulary. Start with the ground rule that "taste" will only be used for the five qualities obtainable from the taste receptors of mouth and throat: salt, sweet, bitter, sour, umami. I know of no good evidence for any further taste qualities. All other experiences that one gets from food (or other objects) in the mouth should be referred to as "flavor". Flavor is regarded as the result of gustatory-olfactory interaction. Anosmics can taste quite well -- nothing missing there. But they cannot experience flavor.
http://personal.ecu.edu/wuenschk/taste.htm

Those with congenital anosmia frequently insist that they have the same sense of taste that those with a normal olfactory sense have. If they were using the word "taste" in the very restricted way that psychophysicists do, that is, referring only to the gustatory sense, I would agree. In fact, I would even agree that anosmic persons might have a more sensitive gustatory sense than do those with a normal sense of smell -- when comparing the tastes of two foods, they might be able to attend to differences in gustatory stimulation that are, in a person with a normal sense of smell, not noticed because they are trivial in comparison to the differences in olfactory stimulation. But do persons who do not have a sense of smell have the same richness of flavor sensations that those with olfaction have? Of course, they do not, but how can the person who has never had a sense of smell know that? How can someone without a particular sense know what it would be like to have that sense? ... I can assure you that one's experience of taste without olfaction is nothing like that with olfaction. It is like viewing a rainbow in black and white... I argue that taste for the anosmic is like vision for the nocturnal animal -- many discriminations can be made, but they are not based on a full sense of taste -- and the anosmics cannot possibly know that, unless they have their sense of smell restored.
http://personal.ecu.edu/wuenschk/taste.htm

If you are concerned about nutrition because food doesn’t have much appeal anymore, eat for color! Try to enjoy the visual and textural aspects of the food and if you eat a variety of colors and textures, you will increase your likelihood of getting a balanced diet. Also, adding a “finishing” of pungent flavors like ginger, vinegar, lemon juice and red pepper just before eating can enhance the sensory quality of the food and make eating a more pleasurable experience. Remember, your nose is a nutritionally demanding organ – in order to regenerate properly, the tissue requires all the nutrients found in a balanced diet. Vitamins A, D and E may be particularly important, but whether supplements are beneficial is not known and not recommended at this time – better to get these nutrients from foods.

- Nancy E. Rawson, Ph.D., Associate Member, Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia, and Scientific Advisor to the Anosmia Foundation

This was a reply, written by Lisa of the Anosmia Foundation, to an email from an anosmic wondering if the website suggests that anosmics cannot taste:

I was also born without a sense of smell. Just like you, I say that I can taste just fine!
What the website was referring to is "flavors", not taste. The difference is that you and I, and all other anosmics, can taste perfectly well, because we have tongues with taste buds on them, and those work properly. However, flavor is something different from taste. Flavor is 'on top of' taste, something extra, which happens when food has a certain smell, and someone puts the food in her mouth, and the flavor then goes into her nose and through her sense of smell. Taste just goes through your tastebuds. So, you and I have taste, and I agree, we can identify almost every kind of food. But what we generally don't get is flavors - the extra part.
From what I understand, most people, who have always been able to 'sense' flavors, only really notice flavors and don't notice tastes as much. That's why they can hold their nose when they think that "something tastes bad.' In reality, they're just blocking flavors. But you and I are only used to tastes, so we pay close attention to tastes, whereas other people don't.
This is the situation for me, but it might be different for you. The way I describe it to people is to say, "When you have a flavored coffee, you can ask for hazelnut or vanilla or all kinds of flavors. But for me, all these flavors just taste 'sweet'. So you taste vanilla coffee, and I just taste sweet coffee."
For most anosmics, the only flavor we are able to sense is peppermint, for some reason. Doctors think it's because it comes into the brain a different way, not just through the olfactory sense.
I hope that this answers your question.