When taking a bite of food, receptors in your mouth called taste buds pick up the taste of the food you are eating. These receptors have five basic tastes: umami, salty, sweet, bitter and sour. The nose also plays a part in how you experience food. It has millions of receptors of odor molecules. The latter occurs because the back of your throat connects your nose and mouth. That air needs to be flowing in or out of your nose for the odor molecules to get into the nose. Odor molecules travel to your nose's olfactory epithelium, the area of the nasal cavity where odor detection occurs. While you are eating, your brain receives signals from both your mouth and nose, allowing you to recognize whatever tasty treat you happen to be chewing. The jelly bean test helps separate taste and smell.
This test is done by blindfolding a partner, then giving them a jelly bean then asking them to chew it and guess its flavor. Then they have to repeat it and this time they have to pinch their nose and say what flavor they taste.
The results of this test was that when you cannot smell the jelly bean you are eating, you can only taste the sweetness, but you can not tell which flavor you are chewing. This demonstrates how much we rely on our sense of smell when tasting food.
References
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bring-science-home-jelly-bean-taste-smell/
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