The basic taste of food is closely related to our daily life and food research. Although a large number of landmark achievements have been achieved in this field， and a consensus on some mature mechanisms， laws， and applications has been formed， the present research status， main academic context and future development trends of this field have not been systematically analyzed and summarized. Therefore， 15 445 literature from the core database of the Web of Science from 2012 to 2021 have been selected as the source data， and the bibliometric analysis methods have been used to analyze the number and distribution of literature on the basic taste of food， as well as the evolution trend of the main academic context and Keywords. The results indicate that the study of the basic taste in food not only involves in the food flavor and sensory perception， but also involves in the interdisciplinary and integrated fields such as the food texture， biochemistry， molecular biology， molecular simulation technology， sensors， biological activity， and psychology. The number of the taste publications is gradually evolving into the following pattern: sweetness > acidity > bitterness > umami > saltiness， and the first three types of tastes are still the mainstream tastes in the food studies. The United States， China， and Japan are among the top three countries in the basic taste research， and the cooperation between countries is relatively frequent. China ranks second in the world in terms of total publication number， H-index， and total citation frequency， but only in the field of umami， China ranks top ten in terms of total publication number， and the publication number of the individual institutions or authors. In addition， in this paper， the evolution trend and main emerging Keywords of basic taste research hotspots in recent years have been analyzed through the literature analysis of the taste combination and keyword jump analysis. Therefore， this paper provides an important guidance for experts and scholars in the fields of food science and so on to grasp the scientific direction， development rules and research hotspots of food basic taste research as a whole， and also provides a theoretical support for the decision-making in the food flavor industry.