I don't believe your tongue has different taste areas but all taste buds send a signal to the brain telling it what it just tasted, i.e. sweet, salty, sour, etc. I think there are 4 distinct tastes that the buds can distinguish from unless they have found more since I was in college. I was pre med until I switched to accting so I didn't have to stay and get a terminal degree. If I'm wrong, blame it on my chemo brain.

I also had the taste go away quickly, like after 1 or 2 bites and that lasted until just about a month ago when I noticed a slight improvement in overall taste, saliva and the resulting joy of eating.

Anne-Marie, for me eating quickly didn't make a difference. It was as if once the tongue sensed the taste, the nerves were overloaded and stopped sending the signal anymore or the brain was not up to receiving the signals since they hadn't been used for a while and had to rebuild their pathways ?? Drinking seemed to help clear or reset the tongue or nerves for another signal. Now I taste much longer into the meal without having to drink and I am able to eat more bites without having to drink as well. That is my slight improvement and it does make an enjoyable difference. For instance I can now eat a roll, a half of sandwich, 2 pieces of pizza, a few cookies, a piece of fried chicken, a piece of chocolate cake to name a few, all without having to take a swallow of liquid and I taste and savor the food each bite and I haven't been able to do that since 2 weeks into my Tx. Now I am retrying many things I gave up on and I push it to see how long I can go without a swallow. As they say good things come in small packages.