taste

[DAVID GIL]

Having just come back from dinner, I am reminded that
Malay / Indonesian has a basic taste term "pahit"
which has no equivalents in any other languages I am
familiar with.  Dictionaries usually gloss it as
"bitter", and that's as close as any dictionary can
reasonably be expected to get -- but it's not simply
bitter.

Some examples of things that are "pahit" but not
"bitter":

   A cup of tea that has less than an inch of sugar
   stirred into it

   A glass of fruit juice with less than two inches
   of sugar

   Many fresh vegetables

The connotation of the term is generally negative.

David Gil
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia