Both. That horrible Finnish salty liquorice is made salty by the addition of ammonium chloride, which has no sodium. Sodium acetate and sodium glutamate taste s

Both. That horrible Finnish salty liquorice is made salty by the addition of ammonium chloride, which has no sodium. Sodium acetate and sodium glutamate taste salty, despite having no chloride in. My speculative guess would be that the salt sensor just senses ionic strength, so any substance which readily splits into ions will taste salty. (obviously i wrote this comment before reading the article, which talks about all this stuff in modest detail!)